New to Stargazers Lounge - Advice Please

[MattG1968]

Hi all,

New on here - looks like a great forum. A question for you all - all advice welcome.

I have just sold my Meade LX-10 SCT, which I had for about 10 years. Great scope in its own way but now I want to step up.

My aspirations are to have a scope which meets the folowing criteria:

1.Great for DSO and good for planetary/lunar observing.

2.Suitable for astrophotography (definitely an aspiration at the moment).

3.Portable

4.Great optics and as much aperture as possible.

I have done a fair bit of rsearch so far and have ruled out any kind of reflector. I am torn between a reasonably priced refractor - my first choice below:

Sky-Watcher Evostar 120ED DS-PRO with an HEQ5 equatorial mount

Or another SCT - best choice a

Celestron NexStar SE8

Your ideas appreciated. Budget wise I am not really sure - could go up to £2K ish if required but would rather keep closer to £1,500 or less.

Thanks guys,

Matt

[ronin]

The 8SE sounds like a straight replacement for the LX-10.

A 120 refractor is quite a bit smaller then the LX-10 so will collect less light and the LX-10 would have beaten it at DSO's. Basically how do you step up to a scope that collects 36% of the light of the previous.

Both options you give appear to be either the same as the scope you have sold or a change downwards at last in the visual area of observing.

If you are thinking of going over to the imaging side then different criteria. The HEQ5 is a good start and the 120 should be reasonable. If the change is for reasons for transport and moving the scope round at least the HEQ5 and scope can be carried separately - but a HEQ5 is not light.

As much aperture as possible is certainly what is wanted for DSO's but when talking of refractors it is also costly. WO FLT98 is close to £2K, go scare yourself looking at the 152 prices and that is still 6 inchs, which is smaller then the LX-10.

[Ben Ritchie]

Hmmm, you have some tension in the requirements there - "great for DSOs" really implies aperture, while "suitable for astrophography" is as much a mount requirement as anything else.

Is GOTO a requirement?

IMO a SCT is a bit of a compromise, especially for astrophotography (a fork mount, wedge and very long focal length at f/10 really isn't ideal). While it's reasonable aperture, it's quite expensive for what you get. And on the other hand a 5" refractor on a GEM is a good imaging setup but isn't "great for DSOs" by any means.

So my first thought is that with a £2k budget I wouldn't look at one 'scope to fit all requirements - a 10-12" Dob would fit the "great for DSO" requirement for modest outlay and very good for lunary/planetary too, then the remainder could go towards an imaging setup. £1-1.5k there buys you everything you need. edit: a 10" Dob is fairly portable too, the 12" less so. An 80ED/HEQ5-type imaging setup is also very portable.