Skywatcher Skymax 150 & 180 PRO Reduced!

[FLO]

Greg has borrowed our Skymax 180-pro and owns at least one 2" widefield eyepiece.

Just heard from Greg. With his 2" 30mm GSO wide-field eyepiece (70-degrees) he noticed vignetting around approx 10 % of the outer field of view.

HTH

[starscy]

I guess if someone is looking for a telescope capable of providing a wide field of view (greater than one degree) probably these telescopes would not make the best choice.

[FLO]

Yes, they are aimed primarily at lunar and planetary observers looking for high magnification, high resolution and high contrast

[Brinders]

I have just sold my EQ6 Pro mount & C9.25 SCT and am now looking for a more portable solution. I note the HEQ5 Pro mount is considerably lighter than the EQ6 Pro and as I am more into lunar/planetary imaging, the thought occurs that the HEQ5 Pro and Skymax 180 may be a viable option and with an imaging source colour CCD camera to replace my Neximage, I could have a solution that best meets my needs (although I am toying with the idea of the 300p Flextube auto as well).

If I go with the Skymax 180 pro, what would be the ideal camera to go with it for lunar/planetary imaging from the Imaging Source stable? I have a budget of up to £1900, but I think I could get the Skymax 180 Pro on the HEQ5 Pro mount with the Imaging Source DFK41AU02.AS Colour, well within budget. Would this be a good solution?

Your advice would be much appreciated.

By the way, what size dewshield should be ordered for this scope?

[GazOC]

I think he general advice with IS cameras is to get a mono one not colour unless you have a good reason not to. Also the 31 series supports 30 FPS while the larger 41s are 'limited' to 15 FPS so unless you really need the larger chip size you might be better off with the cheaper 31 camera.

[Brinders]

Hi Gaz,

That's the sort of advice I was after and had noticed the different FPS quoted. I was curious about which chip size to go for. The reason I was thinking of the colour camera was that I was trying to avoid going down the RGB route, particulary since I would be trying to image within a reasonable amount of time and was therefore trying to save time by not having to take separate AVIs for each colour filter. Also, with the rotational speed of Jupiter, for example, could this be a problem if I was spending time swapping filters and taking separate AVIs for each? I am thinking here of image smearing, but maybe that wouldn't be a real problem?

Cheers,

Brinders

[GazOC]

Hi Brinders, I have the mono and colour 21 series IS cameras. Until recently I used the mono for lunar (its noticable better than the colour on the moon) and the colour for planets (because like you I didn't fancy the extra trouble of RBG) but a couple of weeks ago I had a couple of nights on Jupiter with the mono and some cheap 'starter' filters and its nowhere near as difficult/ fiddly as I'd imagined. Even without practice I was getting over 1000 frames per channel for a total of 3000 without the planets rotation being an issue.

Knowing what I know now I probably wouldn't buy the colour one again, RBG isn't the PITA I'd imagined it to be....

[Brinders]

Thanks Gaz, looks as though BW may be the way to go.

Where did you obtain your RGB filters?

Brinders

[GazOC]

I just used the red 23, blue 82 and the green from a cheap (£10 ish) Wratten filter set. 'Proper' RBG filters are quite expensive so they'll probably have to wait until a set pops up secondhand..

[FLO]

If you are in the market for one of these telescopes you will need to be quick as Skywatcher's importers have almost sold out and FLO has only five remaining!

http://stargazerslounge.com/sponsor-announcements-offers/86816-skywatcher-skymax-180-pro-deal-ending-soon.html#post1281518