What space telescope?

Combat squirrel

Combat squirrel

Combat squirrel

Soldato
Joined
7 Aug 2004
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Not sure where to put this but with the other lenses seems ideal!

So I'm after a space telescope budget 300 but will stretch to 500 if it gets me massive gains.

Needs to be:

1) as powerful as possibly can while still maintaining a quality image
2) MUST allow me to mount my canon EF camera to take pics (5d)
3) not essential but if it had a motorised mount to let it point me in the right direction for key astronomical observations that would be good
 
Watch star gazing live. They give a very brief description of all the types of telescopes there are (should be on iPlayer until the end of tomorrow). It all depends on what you want to look at... Actually... reading your post again you might have already seen it.

The one on ebay above looks alright (I don't know too much) but I don't think you'll be able to mount your 5D with the mount they provide. It seems like it is just an attachment that holds your camera looking into the view finder (something you could therefore do with any telescope and a tripod). I don't think this is exactly brilliant though myself.

Sorry I can't be too much help :/

You might get more response in the astronomy/space thread in GD.
 
I would not buy the one posted above!

That looks very similar to mine, which is a Meade LX55 Schmidt-Newtonian. I have mounted my D90 onto it using the T-Ring adaptor, most telescopes will take a DSLR, but maybe not that one.

I would stick to Meade and Celestron scopes, you get what you pay for, if you can go to 500 pounds then get something like:

http://www.telescopeplanet.co.uk/celestron-nexstar-4se
http://www.telescopeplanet.co.uk/celestron-nexstar-127-slt
http://www.telescopeplanet.co.uk/celestron-omni-xlt-127
http://www.telescopeplanet.co.uk/meade-ds-2102
http://www.telescopeplanet.co.uk/meade-etx90-pe-telescope-autostar
http://www.telescopeplanet.co.uk/celestron-nexstar-102slt

You want something that is easy to setup and program, all above are 'goto' scopes, although i have a meade scope, i found the Celestron goto system more user friendly.

If you are in any doubt about what you want i highly recommend you wait until Feb 10/11 and go here: http://www.astronomynow.com/astrofest/exhibition.html

I have been for the last 2 years, the people that exhibit are very freindly and very knowledgable, you can buy there and then or order, + you get discounts!
 
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Steer clear of Seben will be the general advise from people that have experienced them.

First thing you will have to understand - astrophotography is a completely different form of photography than daylight photography.

Choose what you're most interested in - this will drive the type of scope, the mount and the way you will process it.

For DSO, then the mount is probably the most important component. It has to be accurate enough to track the stars as the earth rotates for longer exposures. For this you'll need an EQ mount and the more accurate the better. The longest exposure I've taken was 10 minutes using a mount that can, by itself do a couple of minutes tracking accuracy then add an optical tracking device called a guider to command the mount to increase the exposure tracking accuracy.
A mount ~£1000 will track up to about a focal length of 1200mm for 12Kg payload or so, above that then you're looking at the next bracket at 5K and then you're into the 10K mounts.

The aperture of the scope is not so important for DSOs as long as you're at about f6 or f7 or below, a scope of f10 will be painfully slow collecting photons at best and the mount will not be able to keep the scope on target accurately enough for that long (for your budget).

For planets/moon, a higher focal ratio is required to pull out the detail but it's usually done with 1000s of short exposures so a good webcam can be modded to do this. It's possible to use a dobson and web cam for moon shots and bright objects.

Remember to budget for a flattener if you don't want to crop the images and a cheshire eyepiece to collimate for newts/dobs.

I would advise reading up more as it does differ completely from the daylight knowledge that you have already.
 
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