Total solar eclipse... Sigma 50-500mm or Meade 1,000mm f/10 SCT?

So, I'm prepping my gear for the eclipse and just loaded my 6D, 7D, 17-40L and Sigma 50-500mm "Bigma" when I go looking for my solar filter. As I grab that I see the Meade 5" 1,000mm f/10 SCT that I use as a guide scope on my Meade 10" LX-200. I kinda forgot about that thing!

I'd love to hear opinions on whether I should shoot with the Sigma 500mm or the Meade 1,000mm.

Thanks!

If you want all the Corona use the 50-500 . The 5" being f10 might hender getting the corona .

I personally would go with a refractive optical tube or lens over a catadioptric optical tube. The long focal length of the SCT sounds tempting but the combination of thermal currents inside the SCT and the longer focal length in even a moderately unstable atmosphere could result in poor image quality. We'll have the sun high in the sky here on the southeast coast and given that it's August it's going to be HOT. I have a Newtonian that's 800mm but i opted to get a filter for my 500mm lens and add the teleconverter for 700mm. I didn't want to have to deal with a mount and the other gear to support it, especially since I'm traveling to get to totality. For me the lens on a gimbal and tripod is perfect for the job.

Use whatever you want. 1,000mm with a full frame sensor is going to frame it up with lots of room to spare because the corona and the plumes extend out rather far, you will want several degrees FOV for all of it with a little room to spare, which a 6D + 1000mm will do with lots of room to spare. But you'll need tracking to really make this work well. If you're not using tracking, then you will want to use a wider FOV, so in that case, use the Sigma.

You will not have issues with heat with an appropriate filter. You're imaging in white light and it will be a totally void surface, so there's no special image quality to worry about at this scale. You will not be at a scale to see convection cells. You will just see a disc. So don't worry about using your SCT or not, it's fine. Worry about getting a good FOV depending on your ability to track and how you're going to image.

Personally I'd use the smallest simplest setup with the fastest control so that you can enjoy the eclipse and not fuss with equipment. I use tracking though, so I can image at high resolution scales. It's much, much easier to do this at low resolution scale, and I recommend a lower scale for simplicity. If you don't have a tracker, you will need to keep it really wide and be ok with a small low resolution scale.

Very best,

I decided to punt and bring both the Sigma 50-500 and the SCT. I have room so... I'll be using a geared tripod head which makes tracking fairly easy. I did some tests and I think I have enough FOV with the 6D and the SCT. I like that combination because I can get seven exposure bracketing with the 6D while the 7D only does three exposures.

We'll know what's best soon enough!

The SCT won't get the corona tho but great close ups .

Actually, the SCT with the 6D did quite well with the corona. Got some flaring for the diamond ring which isn't surprising but overall quite happy.