Having taken my moon shot the other day and then trying to repeat the process the following night with my little Meade reflector I quickly came to the realisation that it wasn’t that powerful at all really and that the Canon 400mm lens and 2 x extender was in effect way more powerful. I had wanted to get into astrophotography for a while, and after speaking to Peter (DigitaFX), it kind of spurred me on. The main problems with my Meade is a combination of the poor magnification and with an EOS 20D strapped onto a T adaptor the small telescope mount only allows for a 35 degree tilt before the Canon hits the tripod/mount. So the Magpie effect comes into play once again and a replacement for the Meade is required… I’ve looked at both a Celestron & Meade 8” reflector and their seams to be quite a large disparity in price. The Celestron is considerably cheaper and I was wandering if any of you had any experience of either of these models and which you would recommend. Thanks in advance for your help.

It is not entirely clear to me what problem you're trying to solve, but I think we need some details about your current and future telescope models before any kind of educated reconmendation can be made. With telescopes, the area of the primary mirror is to biggest cost, so maybe you can include that info.

current telescope is Meade ETX-70AT which is quite small & compact and not terribly powerful. theres not much room to play with in the fork mount so as I mentioned when a camera is attached the angle of elevation is heavily restricted. the models I was looking at are the Meade 8" LX200GPS and either the Celstron NexStar 8i or the NexStar 9 1/4 GPS (although the CPC 800 maybe the better option than these two). I'm wanting to try my hand at some deep spece imaging using stacking software so would, I'd imagine, need an optic of at least 8" to do this effectively.

The effect of having a larger main mirror will be to decrease the time that is required for you to take data. If you increase the area by a factor of two you'll collect twice as many photons and you'll cut your exposure time by a half. You probably already know this, but it is important to clarify the discussion points. Upgrading to an 8" reflector would give you roughly a 10x decrease in resolving time. For stacking purposes, you can take as long as you need, so the time required is not as important as it is with realtime viewing. So with this analysis, I'd suggest making sure that you have a good star tracker which is very smooth and accurate as well as a very solid mount. A larger telescope would certainly be good to have as well, but I think these other components could have at least as big an impact on final image quality.

so basically as far as equipment quality goes it's leaning towards the old 'you get what you pay for' scenario....

I prefer "if you want it done right, do it yourself." (or make it yourself)

I'm strictly in the 'if a job's worth doing, it's worth paying someone else to do it for you' camp when it comes to anything D.I.Y. related. :-)

Don't skimp on the details, I'm learning new things here:-)

In that case, I'd like to point out that the photon gathering aspect of a telescope is certainly not the only consideration, but I think for this use it is the most important. When increasing the size of your primary mirror you will also increase the theoretical resolution (the smallest detail that the telescope can resolve). I'm not sure (because I don't know what you'll be trying to look at), but I don't think this resolution (called the Dawes Limit) will be a problem for you.

Most amateur astrophotographers make use of an 8" telescope with a sturdy mount, and one that can automatically track objects for long exposures. The main reason for choosing an 8" is that it's easy enough to setup and move if needed, where anything larger becomes much harder to move. Of course, if you are planning to built some kind of enclosure for your telescope and a custom mount then that shouldn't be a problem...

Yeah it seems like a good size for the price. I was just thinking that the quality of the tracking and alignment becomes increasingly important as you go to higher magnifications. So for deep spage stuff this is a big deal.

That's true. Most people find that if you go larger than an 8" it becomes unstable on a normal mount, especially if you are piggy-backing your digital camera as well. I'm just going on hear-say though. I can't even afford a decent scope of my own, not to mention trying to get into astrophotography.

Wow, this seems very complex.
Im not at all trying to bash Astrophotography (i dont even know much about it) but doesnt it seem a bit dull? I mean, everyone who does it is all takeing pictures of the same thing. It not like your gonna get it at a new angle, or with different lighting, and certainly not a different DoF; does anyone disagree/agree? Im probably wrong somewhere in there, but thats just my 2 pence

I strongly disagree. This is the same as saying that taking a picture of a certain landscape is just the same. There is a lot of variables involved in astrophotography. Different filters, different exposure times, etc. etc. As far as I can tell it is an extremely difficult thing to master.

If you take a look at different pictures of the same object, you will definitely see differences.

As an illustration, take a look at these images of M42 by different people. Clearly each one is different.

The rest of what you said may be true, but "This is the same as saying that taking a picture of a certain landscape is just the same" is not true. Taking a picture of a certian landscape is a sub-sub-sub set of photography. Astrophotography is its own league.

I mean, everyone who does it is all takeing pictures of the same thing.
I was commenting on this. Although you might be takeing an image of the same object there are infinite variables to consider, so each image will be unique.

There is also a lot of subsets in astrophotography. Planetary, Nebula, Star Clusters etc. So there is a range of subject matter to explore.

yeah i guess that's true, but i guess its just my opinions that it's a bit stale: although I guess i could be fun...if i had the money cough cough

LOL. I think astrophotography is taking photography into a whole new league. You absolutely need to know what you are doing to get anything decent looking... much more skill involved than normal photography.

If I had to guess I would say that Astrophotography is anything but stale - if there is one thing you could never accuse the cosmos of being is static. the chances of two people taking exactly the same shot of an object that is in a constant state of flux is minimal in the same way that capturing the exact same location and lighting would be in a landscape shot. aside from all that the sheer volume of subject material would also present a constant challenge to capture new things. More importantly for me I think is the challenge of capturing clear images from such distant exotic places from the relatively plain environment of my backyard :-)

well, ill tell you one thing, astrophotography would be the awesomest thing in the universe if you could drive around space in some sort of vehicle!!!

well I guess you'll have to sign up to Virgin Galaxy if you want that particular honour....

Better yet... a wormcam! Then you would be able to take images from places no-one has ever been ;)

If your talking tapeworms - those kind of photos I can live without thanks all the same :-)

lol

Nope. WormCams are basically a camera that can be send through a wormhole. Kinda like a remote viewer. You'll also be able to travel through time... quite interesting sci-fi. You guys should read Light of Other Worlds by Arthur C Clarke.

Amature astro-photography is responsible for many of the space discoveries made today. I know that many amature telescopes are used in searches for near earth asteroids, and they are quite successful at finding them. Most of the really big telescopes look at different things that smaller telescopes can't image (otherwise it would be a waste), so it is not like the amatures are trying to directly compete with the likes of the Hubble.

On the UK TV series "The Sky At Night" on BBC 2, they occasionally show amature astro-photos and they are spectacular. Anyone with the knowledge, skills, patience, and equipment should send their pics to them! :)

this is an interesting topic, and thanks Phil for the link (in your Sig). It's something that has fascinated me since I was a little kid, now I find I finally have the chance to start learning about it.
I am hoping to buy a starter telescope Celestron 130GT, but the local Janet Greens guy told me I am wasting my time, and go buy some binoculars...??? If I dont know my way around the sky, then a PC controlled setup is not going to teach me.!
Well, I know enough, most constellations I know, ie, great bear, the plough etc.. so at least i'm not a complete dundder head. So can anyone tell me, is he right? Is it a waste of time and money?
BTW my camera is a canon EOS 350D, I relise I will need an adaptor, or is there another way? my budget is a maximum of £500 for the telescope.
Thanks in advance.
Deus.

I been dabbling in photography for about 5 years. I've been mainly taking pics of scenic type stuff. However I have been wanting to try astrophotography. So I would like to know if my camera would be right for this type of stuff, i also would like to know what to look for in a telescope. Camera specs;Minolta Dimage 200 SLR like, 280 focal length, 7X optical zoom, 8MP, and anti shake. If there is any other specs needed please let me know