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Saving for an APO, but which one?


Perkil8r

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I thought that may be the case, but thought I would ask anyway. I've seen a few pictures from a quick google search that have been taken with it and they do look very good. I will have to keep on saving and see what appears and when etc.

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Must confess, the Altair APO's do take a lot of beating, having had hands on experience they are certainly a lot of scope for the money, build quality is outstanding, and as for the optics....let me know if you want to have a look at one, i'm sure I could come up with some arrangement to help you out.

Marcus

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Thanks Marcus. By working something out do you mean like 85% discount or 25 years intrest free credit? :lol: if so I might just about be in a position to take you up on that :D

Seriously though, thanks for you views. I am tempted by them.

Without sounding like I'm randomly adding scopes to the list, I am considering the SW ED80 for obvious reasons, The WO GT81 if I can find one, and possibly the Altair. Of course if in the meantime I drop lucky somewhere I will ignore that completely and go for a Tak, but that seems rather unlikely.

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Guest NadeemShah

Quality Costs !, there's no such thing as cheap lunch or free lunch as some may say.

There's only two routes if you want good star colour. Reflector or Triplet, but saying that a decent doublet is better then a cheap triplet. ( No Suppliers, Sponsors or Sellers named).

I think it's down to what you want to spend & what you expect from it.

If you just want to hang a scope of a EQ5 for imaging, I would not go more higher then something around 600mm Focal length. For that you could easy buy a 6" Newt with a coma corrector & collimator for around £450 - 500.00, without false colour appearing & have very good star colour.

BTW Mick hows my old WO ?

Edited by NadeemShah
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Quality Costs !, there's no such thing as cheap lunch or free lunch as some may say.

There's only two routes if you want good star colour. Reflector or Triplet, but saying that a decent doublet is better then a cheap triplet. ( No Suppliers, Sponsors or Sellers named).

I think it's down to what you want to spend & what you expect from it.

If you just want to hang a scope of a EQ5 for imaging, I would not go more higher then something around 600mm Focal length. For that you could easy buy a 6" Newt with a coma corrector & collimator for around £450 - 500.00, without false colour appearing & have very good star colour.

BTW Mick hows my old WO ?

Much appreciated. I'm sticking below 600mm certainly. I'm drawn towards a frac due to the fact I prefer imaging with the st80 over the 200p that I currently also own. I want to keep weight to a minimum so that once I get going properly I can bung the st80 on side by side and start guiding once I mod the mount. In time I will upgrade the mount no doubt, but for now I want to improve image quality at the same sub lengths rather than trying to get more detail, I would rather have better quality of the same detail.

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Guest NadeemShah

You could easily guide upto 10mins just using a finder guider system with a shorter focal length, especially with something like a ED80 & the weight would be less compared guiding with a ST80, so it will tax the mount less. Try Unguiding for a challenge...

Edited by NadeemShah
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I managed to get 2 minutes unguided from my old EQ5 and even managed 5 minutes but I threw away 40% of the 2 min subs and about 60% of the 5 min subs with my 200p on it.

A good strip down, de-burr and re-grease makes a world of difference to the EQ5 as does properly centering the polar scope.

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I'm still gobsmacked every time I use it, just awesome colour and pinpoint stars are a pleasure to view.

I know I don't use it to its full potential but I'm happy.

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