What would you recommend as an Astrophotography starter kit? - Forums

Topic starter

Apr 27, 2022 · Edited: Apr 27, 2022

My wife bought me a Skywatcher 200PDS on an HEQ5 Pro mount a few years back as a way for me to get into astrophotography. In hindsight, I would actually recommend:

* 150PDS with coma corrector
* EQ6R Pro mount

Why?

* The 150PDS is a great balance between widefield and galaxies .. with the coma corrector it is effectively a 680mm F4.5 scope
* The EQ6R Pro mount will be a keeper, whereas the HEQ5 Pro is struggling even with my current scope

This setup will easily accomodate dedicated cooled camera, filter wheels, off-axis guiders, autofocuser, ASCOM computer control etc.. You can start by strapping a DSLR or mirrorless camera to it and upgrade bit by bit.

So, if you had an £1800-ish ($2,200) budget for the OTA and mount, what would you recommend?

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Liam Davies

Apr 28, 2022

Similar story to you. I've got a HEQ5 Pro right now and honestly thinking that I should've started with a EQ6-R.

Get the chunkiest mount and then grab a little cheap doublet APO refractor in my opinion, like an 80ED. It's a good balance because no matter what think you become most interested in (i.e. long FL nebulae, planetary, solar, widefield, etc.), the EQ6-R will take it like a champ. You can upgrade the OTA whenever.

I prefer refractor starting out because it is less sensitive to wind, much less prone to needing frequent collimation and makes smaller stars (albeit with a slower f-ratio).

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Steven

Apr 28, 2022

For a real beginner? then wide field is probably "better" or at least it is a lot more forgiving.
forgiving in polar alignment, forgiving in tracking, in guiding, in setup, balance etc.
+ there are so many targets that are suited for wide field imaging. I find 700mm to be "too much" sometimes, especially when trying to capture big regions.

I have the 150PDS aswel, and the EQ6. But haven't really used it much, and so far I've been more focussed on my APO's.
Either way, I wouldn't put the 150 on anything smaller than the EQ6, not really for the payload, but simply the size of the thing.

my recommendation, for a real beginner, would probably be:

- Skywatcher star adventurer GTI
- William optics Redcat 51 (no need to deal with back focus stuff) / Or Skywatchers EVOLUX series seems interesting.
- ASIAIR
- Either a modified canon dslr or straight into a cooled camera (ZWO 533MM seems promising)

The issue with that recommendation, there isn't a lot of room to grow.
Up to a beginner to decide if that is an issue or not. As this is a kind of rig that you can always have running in the back ground as a main rig or as a second rig. Even if you move to bigger stuff, it's always handy to have the equipement laying around for a wide field and easy to use setup.

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kuechlew

Apr 28, 2022

For a real beginner? then wide field is probably "better" or at least it is a lot more forgiving.
forgiving in polar alignment, forgiving in tracking, in guiding, in setup, balance etc.
+ there are so many targets that are suited for wide field imaging. I find 700mm to be "too much" sometimes, especially when trying to capture big regions.

I have the 150PDS aswel, and the EQ6. But haven't really used it much, and so far I've been more focussed on my APO's.
Either way, I wouldn't put the 150 on anything smaller than the EQ6, not really for the payload, but simply the size of the thing.

my recommendation, for a real beginner, would probably be:

- Skywatcher star adventurer GTI
- William optics Redcat 51 (no need to deal with back focus stuff) / Or Skywatchers EVOLUX series seems interesting.
- ASIAIR
- Either a modified canon dslr or straight into a cooled camera (ZWO 533MM seems promising)

The issue with that recommendation, there isn't a lot of room to grow.
Up to a beginner to decide if that is an issue or not. As this is a kind of rig that you can always have running in the back ground as a main rig or as a second rig. Even if you move to bigger stuff, it's always handy to have the equipement laying around for a wide field and easy to use setup.

We had a recent similar thread where the main recommendation was: start with what you have and take it from there. So Camera + Lens + a tracker/mount may be the best way to start. I agree with Stevens proposal of the Adventurer GTI although it yet has to be widely available and proof its performance. In any case I would ditch the ASIAIR, in my opinion not needed for a beginner. Once you decide to automate there are plenty of alternatives and you may think twice what to go for.

Clear skies
Wolfgang

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Dale Penkala

Apr 28, 2022

I would agree as to putting more money into the mount 1st as mentioned above and start with a nice small 80mm ED. I don’t have any experience with the SW series mounts other then they are used widely with excellent results. I’m more familiar with the Celestron line of mounts. In the same weight capacity would be the CGEM II that comes in at 40lbs capacity. These to mounts however would take up just about all of the $2200.00 budget.

Dale