eq mount/telescope/atrophotos

hey everyone, im not new to taking pics of the sky...but i want to get better shots of the milky way next month when i make my trip out to cherry springs PA. I can buy a celestron atrotrack 114 for under $100 locally...looks brand new...comes with eq mount. If i baught this, i would want to mount my camera onto it for wide angle shots of the milky way and purchase the drive for it for auto tracking. Would you guys reccomend this? im only looking to get 1 minute exposures....

BUT...


I also have a meade etx-70 with autostar....i dont know how out of whack the motor is on it, but it still works...just need a replacement battery pack for it. i could piggy back my camera onto it, but i would have to make some sort of piggyback system to it, but i wont be able to polar align it unless i buy a tripod to do so with, which will cost more than buying that telescope above....


once again, i just want to have some amazing shots of the milky way

so im going to pick this up and piggy back...$90

http://longisland.crai​gslist.org/for/2880535​255.html

I don't think that thing tracks does it? I'm debating between a Celestron CG-5 and a Astrotrac myself.

Yeah the Meade one I posted last about does... Ra drive. It's an older model.

looks like a small telescope...I'd worry about how much weight the mount can handle. Instead of piggybacking, maybe you should consider buying a dovetail mount adapter or something so you can put your camera directly on the mount (especially if you find that the mount's weight capabilities isn't so great).

Like I said... I don't care about the actual telescope. I just want to piggyback it for wide angle shots. I might not even use the telescope... If I can mount the camera onto the the eq mount somehow, I'll do that

okay so i picked this up and so far i love it...

question though.


if i did want to start doing pictures through the telescope itself, i know i need the adaptors....but how far can i actually get with the camera attached to the scope? like magnification wise? its 114mm...so that would be my focal length?

I think 114mm was referring to the aperture...i could be wrong though. They took down the listing, so I don't know what it says on the box, but it should say somewhere what the focal length is...I think probably it would be at least 400mm. Wouldn't be much of a telescope if it was smaller than that.

hmm...ill get the specs right now....but i got it polar aligned and able to track! it was much easier than i thought after watching a few youtube videos. Took me a bit to get it to track right though....i forgot to put in the extra battery pack....whoops lol

okay, so its 910mm f8....so what would that be if i mounted the camera directly onto it with the t mount?

think of it as a telephoto lens...it'll still be 910mm f/8 when you put the camera on it...assuming you hook it up to the telescope directly, w/out the eyepieces or any barlows. Think of a barlow like a tele-extender...same thing.

make sure you can hook it up directly to the telescope though...some types of telescopes (mostly reflectors i think) have trouble achieving focus because the focuser is too large (the distance between the camera and the mirror in the scope is too long). There are options if you can't focus (replacing the focuser and maybe using zero profile adapters,or using a barlow (but it increases the focal length a bit...maybe more than would be useful). It might be a bit expensive though. Try a google search and see if your model has any issues focusing with a dslr.

The. Manual says I need a 2x Barlow lens and a t mount... It came with a. 3x Barlow, I'm sure it was purchased by the previous owner as its not marked as Meade. Would I only have to get the t mount for that? Or should I buy the actual Meade 2x Barlow first?

hmm...if you're using the barlow I think you may have trouble taking pictures of stuff that's not planets. It'll be f/16 and f/24 (using the 2x and 3x barlows I think) and very long focal lengths (1820mm and 2730mm). The problem would mostly be the very small aperture (and using the barlow will probably reduce image quality, like any tele-extender). You might be able to actually take pictures of DSOs with a 2x barlow, but it'd depend on the mount and how accurate tracking is. I think most people who track at that long a focal length tend to autoguide as well, so that means more stuff (weight) on the telescope.

You can use any barlow (assuming the barlow will accept 1.25" eyepieces, and not anything smaller). Eyepieces nowdays come in 2 sizes, 1.25" and 2". There was a smaller size, but that's not really used anymore.

I would suggest buying a t-mount adapter and trying it out w/ what you already have. No sense in buying the 2x barlow and finding out it doesn't work for some reason. Those barlows can be quite expensive (generally, expensive = quality optics, but not all the time).

I would consider using your regular lenses for widefield astrophotography (nifty 50 and the sigma).

yeah...i have the tokina 11-16mm 2.8, so i plan on using that a lot when piggybacked...i just have to make a mount of some sort to mount it either on the scope itself or on the eq mount....any suggestions?

i'm not sure about meade, but orion uses the dovetail mount...you can buy one specifically for the camera (screws into the tripod hole). Meade may have, or use something similar. Not sure if you can buy the orion version though.

If you are going to piggyback, you can buy rings that go on your scope, which will also attach to the camera. I think you'd have to buy rings that are specifically made for your scope (diameter). Don't know too much about the rings though...never really looked them up.

hopefully someone else who has experience w/ that sort of thing can give more suggestions.