Money to spend on upgrades, where to start?

[WiltshireChris]

I've lucky enough to have about £300 to spend on upgrades to my rig and I don't know what to do for the best.

Currently I have a (second hand, eBay impulse purcahse) SkyWatcher 200P on an EQ5 mount that I've converted to be controlled by a teensy 4.1 powered OnStepX controller.  I've also built a motorised focuser.  The camera came with a SkyWatcher Guide scope and a Telrad finder as well as an adaper for my Canon 1100D which I've used to take some OK photos.

The question is what do I spend the £300 on?  As I am interested in photography I thought about adding an ASI120MM as a guide scope.  However, the advice from FLO I had a while ago was that the 200P is at the upper end of what the EQ5 can handle and so trying to guide it might be a slightly futile exercise.

The options I've thought of are:

• Accept that the 200P is too much for the mount and buy the FLO recommendation of a 130PDS, then either sell the 200P or just use it for visual astronomy
• Put the money somewhere safe and wait until I can afford a better mount
• Spend the money on useful accessories like a collimating eyepiece and perhaps a better lens than the stock ones that came with the rig.
• Sod the experts, they're over-rated and buy the guide camera anyway just because I love tech!

At the moment I'm unsure what my balance between observing and photographing will be and I realise that makes things harder.

Any other thoughts or opinions would be welcome, thank you

Chris

[Spile]

I’d be asking the question why do you need to upgrade/spend money. What are you trying to achieve?

[crush]

Hi @WiltshireChris

I cant help with what to buy but I read this thread the other day about the 130 PDS that may interest you, it is a very long read.

 

[Elp]

Have a long hard think first. AP is an absolute money pit unless if you buy something like a ZWO Seestar, but even then it may encourage you to spend more afterwards.

[saac]

If your longer term aim is to get serious about astrophotography then save the money for a longer term upgrade to your mount. Your mount is everything in astrophotography.  Otherwise buy a SeeStar and have some fun and it may well keep the fire in your belly for you to save and go for some serious upgrades longer term.  If you bought a See Star you would definitely have some fun with it and be sharing it with others. Once you are finished with it you can sell it to me to help fund the upgrade to a new mount  

Jim 

Edited April 8 by saac

[Elp]

23 minutes ago, saac said:

Once you are finished with it you can sell it to me to help fund the upgrade to a new mount  

Gotta love self promotion 

[saac]

9 minutes ago, Elp said:

Gotta love self promotion 

Gotta look for opportunities

Jim

[WiltshireChris]

1 hour ago, Spile said:

I’d be asking the question why do you need to upgrade/spend money. What are you trying to achieve?

That's a good question.  I have a birthday coming up and a few family members are aware I'd rather choose my own gifts and so it's there to be spent.   However if there isn't a clear 'thing to do' then I'm happy to put it back for future purchases.  There is still more I can do with the rig I've got (mostly take photos of the undersides of clouds at the moment!)

1 hour ago, crush said:

Hi @WiltshireChris

I cant help with what to buy but I read this thread the other day about the 130 PDS that may interest you, it is a very long read.

 

Thank you, there's some great pictures in there which gives me inspiration.

59 minutes ago, Elp said:

Have a long hard think first. AP is an absolute money pit unless if you buy something like a ZWO Seestar, but even then it may encourage you to spend more afterwards.

 

49 minutes ago, saac said:

If your longer term aim is to get serious about astrophotography then save the money for a longer term upgrade to your mount. Your mount is everything in astrophotography.  Otherwise buy a SeeStar and have some fun and it may well keep the fire in your belly for you to save and go for some serious upgrades longer term.  If you bought a See Star you would definitely have some fun with it and be sharing it with others. Once you are finished with it you can sell it to me to help fund the upgrade to a new mount  

Jim 

The money pit is definitely an issue.  On the one hand I'm spending money on creating images that can easily just be seen on the internet but, at the end of the day, I will probably enjoy the process .  I guess I need to look at whether I'll get any more enjoyment with having better equipment.  I hadn't seen the Seestar, that's an interesting piece of kit.

Oh, and yes, nice try @saac

Thank you all, more food for thought...

[ONIKKINEN]

Even with the 130PDS you still face the issue of having no guiding, and you'd want to get to that as soon as possible. I think setting up autoguiding is a sound strategy for now.

Its not wasted money even if you do find the mount to struggle with the payload, because you can just use the guiding kit for a possible future mount upgrade. An overloaded but guided mount is still better than an overloaded and unguided mount so there will still be an improvement.

For your mount a smaller scope might be the best play, but if the budget can handle a scope or guiding, then go with the guiding for now as guiding is necessary with any scope and mount (within reason, unguided mounts that do well start at like 5k).

[Cosmic Geoff]

Try defining your goals. If you want to take award-winning images, some major changes of kit may be necessary. If you want to just collect some images with modest effort, you could go for EVAA and live-stack images collected with Sharpcap and a Startravel 102mm refractor.

A new Startravel 102 should be within your budget, and you will not need guiding.

[Jonathan_Shields]

I agree decide what you want to do the most. I am more of an EAA guy but I think its fair to say a 200p on an EQ5 is overweight even for visual. 300 will get you a 130pds and change. You are then in a good place for unguided astrophotography/EAA. If you like the 200p for visual keep it but handle with care on that mount. Or sell it and save for e.g a ZWO585 which will likely give you better results than an unmodded dslr.

If you are set on guiding and keeping the 200p you might be better saving for a more suitable mount. 

Edited April 12 by Jonathan_Shields

[Bivanus]

😄 For a VERY short while I was under he impression I was doing AP...Then it became obvious that I was really poorly doing EAA / EVAA which slowly and painfully I am learning to do a bit better. The cut is the mount & the processing. So if you REALLY want to go the AP way , there's where you money should go. Exactly how, well, theres a bit of talking there. Sell the big 200p and take the 130PDS - one way. Sell the 200p and go the dark way of the refractor , like an 80 mm StellaMira or something like that - another way. Bite the bullet and KEEP the 200p while investing in a serious mount - third way. You are at a crossroad , change is coming, you can feel it in the water , you can feel it in the air ...Oh, wait,  that's from Lord of the Rings 😁

[Elp]

15 minutes ago, Bivanus said:

Lord of the Rings

Be sure that whatever is purchased the clouds will roll in like it's a normal day in Mordor.

[WiltshireChris]

I asked for food for thought and I've had a feast! Thank you all, LotR quotes are always welcome, someone needs to send a West wind to blow back the fumes of Mordor!

As an only occasional dipper into new developments I hadn't twigged the emergence of EAA and that's been a bit of an eye opener and also helped clarify my thinking.  It appeals to me as it is more like getting out on a clear night and looking at whatever is interesting.  It also seems a nice way to show other people the wonders of the sky in an easy way.

Longer term we are due to move house in a couple of years and I've got it in mind to find somewhere that has room for a more permanent site for a scope and so allow a proper pier to be built and used.  If that happens then I can see a more chunky mount being a sensible choice.

For the next couple of years I'll be lugging telescope in and out and so reducing the weight and bulk of that seems a sane idea.

I think what I'm going to do is try some live stacking with Nina/Sharpcap and just get familiar with the tools and set up needed accepting that the mount/scope combo compromises the results but it costs me nothing to try. 

I may end up getting the 130PDS but don't know whether I'd sell the 200P or not.  As I said I've built a motorised focuser for the 200P and I'd want to switch that to the 130PDS.  I wonder whether the dual speed focuser from the 130PDS could be swapped over to the 200P as it might be more useful there for visual work and the 130PDS can then benefit from auto focus.  More thinking needed...

Thank you all again for your time and ideas, they are appreciated