New scope time..

[Milliways]

I have had my scope for nearly a year now and think its time for a change.. I am looking at the Orion SkyQuest XX12 IntelliScope Truss Dobsonian as i want it for astrophotography.. But there are loads of scopes out there for the same price ($1,299.95 from telescope.com) and was wandering for this sort of cash i could get anything better??

Cheers guys.

Dave.

[Psychobilly]

A nice scope but a Strange choice for astrophotography? -

Yes i do know you can image with a dob but there are far easier and more conventioal ways to do it?

Peter...

[Milliways]

A nice scope but a Strange choice for astrophotography? -

Yes i do know you can image with a dob but there are far easier and more conventioal ways to do it?

Peter...

Any advice on what to look for?? I really am getting into astrophotography but aligning the ETX is a pain in the **** and i really want something with more aparure than 6"

[johninderby]

Alt-Az mounts are great but limited to short exposure times unless you get a wedge. You mention concerns about aligning the scope, but if you do want to get into astrophotography there is no real way to avoid it.

An 8" SCT or 8" newt on an EQ mount are a good way to get into astrophotography on a reasonable budget and want more than a 6" aperture. The Celestron Advanced Series C8-SGT (XLT) or Celestron C8-NGT or Skywatcher EXPLORER-200P HEQ5 SynTrek etc. come to mind.

I'm sure you'll get plenty of other suggestions about what to buy.

John

[Phil Fargaze]

There are Equatorial Platforms out there, but they would be a large amount of the budget. They can be diy built though, and I`m in the process of making one to use with the XT10. As for imaging, they are limited for long exposure.

[Psychobilly]

As John Said SCT or Newt on a GEM .... have a look in the forsale section theres a rather nice ....... ( you did PM him earlier )

[beamish]

U.K. Astronomy Buy & Sell

U.K. Astronomy Buy & Sell

Take a look here, good place to start and likely to have some change too !

[Capricorn]

As Milliways is mentioning comparative prices in $ and looking at telescopes.com I guess they are in the US so the Astro for sale in the UK site may not be the best.

Most of my time with an ETX is simply plugging everything in and levelling the scope base then managing not to trip over anything. The alignment is about 3 minutes. Visual use only.

Aligning a mount for astrophotography will be longer then for the ETX. You will need a good degree of accuracy for the exposure times involved.

So a good motor driven EQ mount is necessary and they are not cheap.

Before you do anything I suggest that you find out everything you need and price it all up. Tripod+mount, Scope, Camera adaptor, will you need a field flattener? Leads of various sorts, power supply(mains or otherwise). Most EQ mounts seems to need to use of a polar alignment thingy, have you a red dot finder or equivalent - with no goto you will have to point it all at the right place.

Add whatever bits above into the overall cost, depending on what you may have already.