First "Proper" mount?

[MarySkater]

As I said in my introductory post, I live in a flat in a city centre. To look at the sky at all, I need to walk down 2 floors and out to the back yard. I'm surrounded by buildings and can only see the overhead section of a light-washed sky. (I don't have a car to go anywhere better.)

A while ago, I tried looking at Saturn with my 50mm birdwatching scope. I liked the view, but one problem was using my camera tripod - it wouldn't aim high enough, and was very fiddly to track across the sky. So I thought, "Even with my little scope, I could do better with a proper mount." I'm assuming that the scope, which has the right fitting for a photo tripod, can also be mounted on an astronomical tripod.

Skywatcher sell the EQ2 mount for £91-£99. Hmm... 3 times the cost of my camera tripod, but okay, it's a more precise piece of engineering. But Skywatcher also sell the Startravel 80 refractor for £117, complete with mount. Huh...? Add £20 to the cost of the mount and you get a scope as well? (I don't expect miracles from the Startravel 80, but I need: light to carry, small to store, and possibly suitable for terrestrial as well as astronomical use.)

However, the Startravel is sold with the EQ1 mount. As milkyjoe pointed out in his recent "first attempt at imaging" post, that's not the most stable platform. So how much better is the EQ2 than the EQ1?

My options are:

a) Don't buy ANYTHING until I retire in a couple of years, when I'll be moving to a better location for skywatching.

Get the EQ2, use it with my birdwatcher scope for looking at the moon and planets, and generally finding my way around the brighter things in the sky.

c) Get the Startravel 80 + EQ1 combo.

Option (d) would be to buy the Startravel without a mount, AND the EQ2, but I think that's getting too expensive for me to justify.

Any comments will be read and appreciated. Thanks.

Mary

[John]

Have you thought of an alt-azimuth mount like the Skywatcher AZ-3 ?. They provide good platforms for short tube scopes, are really easy to set up and move around and have slow motion controls on both axis.

You can use them for birding / terrestrial viewing as well.

[MarySkater]

Thanks, John. Still trying to get my head round the finer points of alt-azimuth versus equatorial. I realise alt-az is better for terrestrial use. But say I wanted to get into sky photography. I think I'd need to put a motor drive on my mount, to deal with long exposures. Can you do this with alt-az?

On the flip side, how easy would it be to set up an equatorial mount on a terrestrial static target, say a bird's nest? I wouldn't be trying to track fast-moving wildlife. That's a job for binoculars.

I'll take a look at the AZ-3, anyway.

Mary

[Carbon Brush]

Hi Mary.

Mount choice is partly down to personal preference. I can't get on with EQ for 'on the ground' and I can't get on with ALT/AZ for the sky. But some people are OK with these options.

On mounts in general, whether EQ or ALT/AZ there are a few general things to consider. The bigger & more rigid the mount, the better for viewing and taking photos. You have more options on fitting different scopes & cameras. But it costs more. Also it has to be carried. At some point, depending on your build, you have to split the mount, weights for EQ, and scope. Several journeys down the stairs? So you reach your chosen compromise on quality/features, cost and portability.

Have look at some mounts in a shop if you can. Ask to pick them up. But don't head for the door! Reading that a mount weighs so many Kg is fine on paper. But an EQ mount with a weight stuck out of one side and a scope on top can be unwieldy!

Consider looking around for a 2nd hand mount to save some money. Quite often new scope + mount packages are at strange prices compared to separate.

Hope this adds a little to the information gathering.

David.

[John]

Alt-az mounts are not really suitable for astro photography but then an EQ mount is pretty awkward for looking at wildlife !.

I think if you a looking at imaging you might need something heavier duty than an EQ2 - like an EQ5, or at least and EQ3-2.

I'm not an imager though so others will advise better than I can on that !.

[ollypenrice]

I entirely agree with John. As an imager I always say the HEQ5 is the minimum for photography. In your situation I would look for a nice alt az. The big difference over camera mounts is that astro mounts don't pivot below the scope but, (geometrically!!) through the middle of it. They don't fall at you when you aim for the zenith.

Alt Az mounts need no counterweights or polar aligning, a big bonus.

Olly

[rowan46]

Hello mary I realise this system is expensive Astrotrac - Astrotrac TT320X-AG but there may be some possibilities in it.

[JamesM]

Mary, I would first forget using an astro mount for terrestrial use. The tripod you mention as having already is fine for your spotter scope.

Coming back to the the main part of your enquiry. The alt-azimuth mount is simple and intuitive to use. If for what ever reason you wish to consistently track an object, be it for imaging or to facilitate precise focusing or simply to enjoy observing an object without always having to fiddle with something then you will need a motor to help. Alt-azimuth mounts do not have this facility and so you will need to turn your attention to an equatorial design of mount.

The cheapest options open to you are the EQ2 (£100) and a motor (£62) - you will need to manual adjust the scope in the up and down movement but the motor will guide it across the sky. Next up the EQ3-2 (£160) and a single motor (£79) or double (£91) The single motor option does the same as described above with the EQ2 but in the double motor option, the control pad that is supplied allows you to track and to move the scope up and down via two motors. Before you ask, yes it would be better to buy two motors for a little more than the cost of one but that's economics. I believe if you went for the latter option that already had a motor or two on it, it would work out even cheaper. Generally, bundling equipment such as scope and mount is cheaper BUT do your homework, because this may be the case when buying from one shop, but if you buy the items in separate shops then it maybe different.

So in summary, leave the tripod you have to assist with watching wildlife and use an Equatorial scope for viewing the heavens. Olly made a valid point with regards to imaging. Imaging requires greater precision with tracking and like everything else, you get what you pay for. The gear needed for imaging soon mounts up and so does the weight of it all hence the bigger mount (HEQ5) I can understand your need to want to 'future proof' any purchase made now - but in real terms that would only be truly achieved if you spent a lot more money than your current budget my suggest. If imagaing was your true goal then getting hold of Steve Richards "Making Every Photon Count" would give you all the info needed from the very basics to advanced.

Hope that helps but please ask more questions if you are not sure about anything that has been said so far.

James

[MarySkater]

Thanks, all, for the input. It has given me a few more things to think about.

I had read up on the different ways alt-az and eq mounts move, and I'd seen pictures of astro-scopes on mounts with big counterweights, but I hadn't understood that the counterweight is part of how an eq mount moves, and that alt-az doesn't need it.

Any serious attempt at imaging should wait until I have a better location, space and money to get better kit. Right now, compact and portable (and cheap!) are absolute necessities. But any time spent looking at the sky and identifying objects would be time well spent, just in terms of finding my way around.

For the moment, I'm not going to buy anything. I'll keep reading the forum for information, and keep watching E-bay for any interesting bits of kit in the sub-£100 range that might come up.

Thanks again,

Mary

[JamesM]

Just in case you don't know, 50 posts and 1 months active membership, will allow you to access the For Sale Section where you can pick up some decent kit. I would be careful of buying scopes on Ebay as there is a lot of rubbish and if its used kit, you need to know what to look for or what to watch out for. Should you see a "bargain" don't hesitate to ask for advice on it here first for an impartial view.

Clear skies

James

[MarySkater]

Yes, I'd read about the qualifications for using the For Sale section. It looks to me like an incentive to build up the posts count by posting a lot of "yes" and "I agree" to other people's comments. I will try to resist...

I think I'm down to 2 possibilities. I could get an alt-az mount, which would let me make better use of the spotting scope I already have. That's the sort of thing I might get from Ebay if cheap. But I keep in mind what the new price from a recognised dealer would be, and I wouldn't pay more than half of that on Ebay. You gamble the money you save against the possibility that it's no good.

The other possibility I've considered is to get a compact refractor that has an EQ mount included. I don't think I'd attempt to get a used one. There's an Ebay shop offering a new Phenix 90. Some searching here on Phenix suggests that their reflectors aren't too good, but their refractors are okay at the price. Current price is £72, which would tempt me, but that's "reserve not met." By the time it meets the reserve, it will be getting closer to, say, the Skywatcher Startravel 80 at £117 from FLO. Phenix gives a slightly bigger object lens, but hey, I'm moving up from a 50mm birdwatcher scope - either of them is going to be an improvement.

So I'm still not going to start spending immediately, but I'll keep reading and thinking.

Mary

[JamesM]

Mary I have just had a look at the scope on Ebay. I would recommend that you don't buy it. The reasons:

- "Phenix" never heard of them. When you're starting out, it is a really good idea to stick to known manufacturers because you can always sell it on to either get some of your money back if astronomy proves not to be what you want to help generate some money towards your next purchase. You would be luck to give this away as no one knows what the scope is.

- In its description it mentions that a "short tube" is ideal for viewing galaxies and nebula. A short tube is great if your imaging but for observing these targets you really want to be capturing as much light which would necessitate looking at a newtonian type scope not a refracting one of this size.

- They describe something called a "polfinder", I don't know what that is? Worst still, if they meant to say finder scope that's fine as yes it would help you to find objects but unfortunately they couldn't help themselves when they then went on to say, "...allows accurate finding and tracking". What ever it is, only motors (or slow motion controls) actually help with tracking and perhaps something has got lost in translation but this description is conveniently left open to misinterpretation.

- Price would normally be £337.50! Well, if that's what they think its worth good luck to them but I would love to know how many they sold at that price. Believing it to be the real price doesn't make it so and I could point out many excellent scopes for less than than that. It's an old tactic to say you should be paying this buy hey, we'll help you out - it would be a nice sentiment if only it was true.

- Scope specification. One of the reasons some refracting type telescopes are very expensive, is because of the need to control 'colour' when looking at bright objects, known technically as 'chromatic aberration'. You will recognise this when you see a purple halo around the edge of the moon or when looking at Jupiter where it can also effect focusing. The easiest for manufacturers to solve this is to perhaps use special glass, maybe using two or three objective pieces of glass, special coatings etc but all that naturally comes at a price. Alternatively, they can lengthen the tube of the scope in relation to the size of the objective lens at the front of the scope and is given a numeriacl 'F' notation which is called the focal ratio. This scope has a ratio of 'F5.5' (Tube length 500mm divided by objective 90mm = 5.5) The tube is not long enough to have any effect on 'colour' and at that price will not have special glass, coatings etc and in fact, using the same aperture you would really be looking at getting a minimum tube length of 700mm producing a ratio of F7 at least. At this length 'colour' would still be present but no way near as bad as the above scope.

Mary, the reason for putting this amount of detail in front of you is not just to say don't buy it but to help give you reasons that will help you in your search. There are no real bargains except for used kit but said before, you need to know what to look for and hopefully the information above might help you with that. Have you thought of talking to First Light Optics? I suggest this, not because they help sponsor this forum but because they are really friendly and a quick talk to them might help with your research and understanding of you needs.

Clear skies

James

[Space Beagle]

Hmm..I've never heard of Phenix either tbh.

However, looking at the couple of scopes on fleabay it appears to be 'Sky's The Limit' who are selling them, this is the company who sell the really good TMB clone eyepieces (from which i've had two) and they have a good reputation on this forum, as far as I know! Alan, there is a nice fella to deal with. I note on thier website that they are not actually trading again until 01 Feb though 'cos of them getting to the VAT limit - best to check with them before putting in an order.

Doc

[MarySkater]

Thanks, James and Doc. As I said, Phenix refractors do get lukewarm approval here if you search. If that scope was going to sell for £72, I'd be tempted, but I think it will either go higher, or not sell. And if I get into the dizzy heights of £100+ (doesn't take much to make me dizzy...) I'd be more likely to go for the Skywatcher Startravel 80.

The most sensible option for me is not to buy any scope until I move to Dumfries in 2 years, when I'll have a back garden and darker skies. But sometimes the "new toy" urge gets too strong

Meanwhile, I've placed an order for an adapter to mount my binoculars on my tripod, as an alternative to my spotting scope, and I've downloaded Stellarium. I can identify a few of the more obvious constellations, but there's a lot I don't know.

Mary

[gedmac]

the startravel 80 plus mount is great for grab n go,you can always trade them in on the for sale section when you want to upgrade:)

[chard]

Hi Mary

You could try astrobuysell.com.

There are a fair few mounts on there at the moment.

[ozwebuk]

Mary, as a novice I bow to the knowledge of others and my only advice would be join a local society and take advantage of advice from those with the experience as well as getting opportunity to look and use others peoples kit.