Joking – this will be used for observing, at least in the beginning:
Sky-Watcher 150P (150/750mm Newtonian telescope) on NEQ-3 (equatorial mount)
But sooner or later I will use the mount for photography – instead of the telescope I will first use only one of the cameras with normal lenses on it, once I have motors which can perform some automatic counter-action to the movement of our planet. The result, when using and aligning the whole rig properly, should be pin-point stars at exposure times greater than only a few seconds. When using a normal tripod which stands still, there’s the “rule of 400”, meaning that you can divide 400 by the (“full frame”-equivalent) length of your lens to get the maximum exposure time before stars become star trails. So even with my wide angle 14mm lens (28mm-e), that would mean less than 15 seconds. When using this NEQ-3 and at least one motor for the right ascension axis, I should be able to expose longer. Then the stars will stand still, and the earth will move (like it does in reality) 😉
Of course I’ll take some pictures of the moon through this telescope next time we have a clear sky. This isn’t really a setup for flat field deep sky objects, where you’ll need really long exposure times (of hours). For doing that, you’d also need a coma corrector (since all “fast” Newtonian telescopes show some coma at the frame borders), and you’d also have to help the motorized tracking with “guiding”. Which means that you’d need a second camera just for that purpose. Plus this mount isn’t really made for it, you’d need a much bigger and stronger one, which alone would cost three times as much as this complete rig you see here.
So – I’m really looking forward to this. But since I’ve bought a 6 inch telescope, I’m responsible for the next six weeks of rain and clouds, as they say in the astronomy forums…
If you want to see more and better pictures of the thing, and read a test of it, look at Arkadiusz Olech’s site.
Thanks for reading.