woohoo : Got my 2inch ED80 x2 Barlow.

[Catanonia]

Going to put it directly onto the scope to give 3 times magnification.

Also along side my 2 x teleconverter should give me effectively 600 - 3600mm ED80 scope :)

Got my polar scope all centrally aligned now during the day so should be MUCH MUCH closer for tracking along with a computer program for setting the polar star to the correct angle in the scope

Nice little program here
http://arnholm.org/astro/polar_alignment/index.html (http://arnholm.org/astro/polar_alignment/index.html)
to do this :)

Also worked out how to calibrate my goto system, so now all I need is good skies and typical in the UK, the clouds are in :(

[chris.bailey]

I think you might be pushing it a bit to take an ED80 to 3.6m and at around f40 its a bit of a slowcoach!

That polar aligment program is one of the ones in my armoury and I just visually put polaris in the right place on the circle. I get 3 minute subs with my FLT110 that way without too much bother.

[A.S.I.G.N. Observatory]

It will be great for bright objects like Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, close-ups of moon terrain and the international space station.

At that focal length, you can just about forget about galaxies and other faint deep space objects as the light gathering ability will be way too slow.

[Adrena1in]

It's fun to push the focal length as far as you possibly can, but the image quality will likely drop pretty dramatically. I once put my 2x and 3x Barlows together, along with a 10mm eyepiece in there too, through my 1200mm scope. I think I worked out it was roughly something like 14,000mm, f/110! The pictures were rubbish! :D

[Catanonia]

Bitten the bullet. Buying a Skywatcher ED 120 Diamond Black Pro Refractor :)

ED 80 Pro Skywatcher up for sale now :) or do I keep the ED 80 ??????

What do you think ?

[chris.bailey]

Keep the ED 80 no contest as its a great wider field scope and will guide the 120 to perfection. The two focal lengths complement each other well.

You will need to practice balance with the 120 and if you enter the dark art of guding you might want to consider going side by side.

[Catanonia]

Keep the ED 80 no contest as its a great wider field scope and will guide the 120 to perfection. The two focal lengths complement each other well.

You will need to practice balance with the 120 and if you enter the dark art of guding you might want to consider going side by side.



mmm, the ED120 I am getting comes with a bonus of a guide camera............

Now, this is getting interesting, use that to guide and the 120 for the main pictures.

Now you have got me, do I want to sell it.... I don't need to, only 200 notes...

Mate any chance of having a chat via telephone, getting a bit complicated for online here ?


Edit : If All I will use the ED 80 for is guiding, then whats the point of having such a good scope for it. Surely some lighter cheaper scope would do the job just as well seeing as using the 120 for the main imaging scope ????



Cat

[Adrena1in]

What Chris is saying is that sometimes you'll want the ED80 for wider field imaging. The 120 will give you a bit too much "zoom" for some subjects which are too large for it's field of view.

But no, if you're only going to use the ED80 for guiding and never for imaging, then sell it and guide with a much cheaper scope. I got an Orion ST80 for guiding, and it was about £70.

[chris.bailey]

What guide scope comes with the 120?

There is a lot of benefit in collecting a range of complimentary scopes and only getting rid of one if you really dont find a use for it over say a year of imaging. There are also benefits in guiding with a scope that is also fine for imaging. Sounds odd but heres my argument.

A guided session takes me about an hour to set up and get balanced. I dont put my guide scope in guide rings and set everything up to be aligned i.e the two scopes, finder and RDF all point to the same object pretty precisely. I then lock everything down tight before firing up the guider (as per the crappy image below). The only thing with any adjustment to it is the finder scope!

I now know I can GOTO with reasonable accuracy with either scope so that if I change target mid session I can image with either scope and guide with the other. The FLT 110 is a bit long to guide with (risk of having no guide stars on the chip) but with a 0.63 focal reducer on the back it can be done. I can therefore image/guide with either scope without too much messing around (15 minutes tops to change over the guide and imaging cams). When its freezing cold the last thing I feel like doing at 2am is demounting a scope.

My side by side arrangement is not everyones cup of tea but to me it makes a lot of sense to get everything of any weight as closer to the point of pivot as possible meaning having a lot less counterbalance on the scope and therefore less overall weight. I also find it a lot easier to set up though balancing it all up in 3D takes a bit of practice.

Its horses for courses and I dont know of anyone else who sets up quite the same way as I do. I do, however, know a number of people with some fairly pricey scopes in their list who still have an ED80!

[Catanonia]

Cheers guys, I am keeping it.

Going to pop along to the shop in Manchester to have a chat with the guys selling the 120 and ask lots of questions. I need get some attachments to piggy back the ed 80 on the 120 plus need to work out some more questions and answers.

The guide cam that comes with the 120 is a cheap (£120 worth) mono, but for an extra £119 can upgrade it to a cooled, colour proper camera / guider :)

Need to check it all out and how it would work with my Goto system.

Watch this space. Money burning a hole in my pocket :)

[chris.bailey]

[QUOTE=Catanonia;8064665]

Cheers guys, I am keeping it.
The guide cam that comes with the 120 is a cheap (£120 worth) mono, but for an extra £119 can upgrade it to a cooled, colour proper camera / guider :)
QUOTE]

Right answer :-)

Some would consider £120 to be quite a lot for a guide cam! Would not bother with cooling etc for a guider where light and simple is the way forwards. Usefull though to have ST4 capability as that avoids any other complexity like EQMod

[Catanonia]

http://www.opticstar.com/Run/Astronomy/Astro-Telescopes-Skywatcher.asp?s=9800c0c8-b24a-4248-9f33-23584172703a&p=0_10_1_3_7 is the link to the Scope and the mono video picture camera supplied free.

Thought might as well bung another 119 notes on and get the colour imager camera that can also be used as a guide

[A.S.I.G.N. Observatory]

DEFINATELY KEEP THE ED80!

It is perfect compliment for the 120. The two of them go hand-in hand. You can swap guiding and imaging camera's between them and you won't be sorry!

Baz.

[Catanonia]

That side by side mount looks good Chris. Saved the page incase I decide to do it.

Yes that is why I went for the £120 guide camera as was only a little bit more and negated the need not to use software to drive the mount. Straight through with the Shoestring box :)