Thoughts on a second scope

[Roy@Aldermaston]

I'm currently using a Nexstar 4 SE, and although its a great scope I'm after a one with a larger aperture that would be good for DSO imaging. The one I have in mind is the SW Explorer 200PDS mounted on the HEQ5 Pro (GOTO mount). I would welcome any thoughts on this setup. It will be a few weeks before I can afford it, so plenty of time to reconsider. MY current DSLR is a Pentax K100D, which has produced some decent shots used with the SE4. I was thinking of buying from Opticstar, who offer a free Opticstar SL-131C CCD camera with the HEQ5 mount. Has anyone used this camera for planetary imaging - is it worth having?

Roy

[spaceboy]

Hi Roy

I am no expert on imaging but I think if you are going with a 200PDS you would be better having it on an EQ6PRO for DSO imaging ??

SPACEBOY

[Roy@Aldermaston]

Thanks Spaceboy,

With the few extras that I need to buy the EQ6 will be outside my budget. I would like a computerised mount and the HEQ5 pro is at my limit for the time being, but I may be able to upgrade at a later date.

Roy

[spaceboy]

The HEQ5 is a great mount for visual observing and some imaging but a 200PDS is a fair sized scope. I gather from your thread you are looking more towards astography than visual so in this case you need a substantial mount that can track accurately on both axis no matter what forces of gravity come in to play. If you plan on exposing an object for any length of time you would only need the tiniest bit of slop in the worm gears for it to be a dissapointing out come. Again I am no expert and others may have better advice.

SPACEBOY