NexStar 6se astrophotography mount

[vulcan]

How would I go about mounting my NexStar 6se tube on an equitorial mount for astrophotography? Which mount would be suitable, I would want it to be motor driven but not necessarily GOTO.

[jgs001]

I don't know the tube weight, but the mount considered the minimum (although there are people with lighter mounts producing good results, but I don't think the lighter mounts would handle the long focal length and weight so well) is the HEQ5, the Syntrek version has the full goto motors and guiding ability, but is cheaper as it doesn't have the goto electronics in the handset. You'd need a set of tube rings to fit the 6SE and a dovetail bar which attaches to the rings with M6 bolts, you should be able to get all you'd need from FLO.

For the focal length of the 6SE, it may be the eq6 would be a better option... I don't really know sorry. The longer focal length taxes the mount far more, as the tracking has to be that much more precise, although I'd expect guiding the HEQ5 would also work well.

[E621Keith]

The 6SE has uses a Vixen dovetail, so you can mount it directly onto a HEQ5 without modification.

The C6 is very stable on an EQ5, but probably not good enough for astrophotography. I just bought a GPDX mount for that purpose, I will let you know how I get on with it if you can wait a month or two.