Upgrading to a new scope

Steve - with a budget of 4K you have some fairly good options. But I would hesitate to recommend an all-in-one setup from one of the mass producers.

Perhaps you should look at the mount and OTA separately.

There are good GEMS out there and if you go second-hand, you can get a bargain. Equally, there are plenty of OTA's out there too.

If you want a mount for life and are prepared to go over-budget by a small amount, look at Gemini and the new AP Mach 1. I'm sure others here know of other mounts in the 4-6K bracket. OK, it blows your budget but you could presumably save a grand or two over the coming year or so for a good OTA.In the meantime, you can get a good 8" reflector second hand for a few hundred.

You have a difficult choice and I don't envy you!

Cheers

Dave

Steve,If you have 4K to play with I would highly recommend importing a losmandy G11. That mount will stand you in great stead for many years to come. Importing one from the states (direct from losmandy) will cost you just shy of 3K including all VAT duties and few extra accessories (i priced it all up recently!). Pop a decent OTA on that and you'll have an setup many would envy. You could quite easy put a 10" newt on top of that and still have change out of the 4K.


Only thing is you wont be carrying that lot around on a pedal cycle. But then anything you could carry around on a pedal cycle is not worth buying anyway, not with that budget!!

Thanks folks


Thanks for the suggestions folks, I am now looking at the mount as a long term investiment (possibly very long term), and am now contimplating either the Celestron CGE or Losmandy GM11 Goto, with either a 8" or 9.25" xlt SCT OTA.... going well over budget I know, but then Xmas and my birthday are coming up soon ... so maybe SWMBO, may feel it in her heart to contribute to some scientific discovery!!!!!! and if not maybe the bank manager!

Got an email from Patrick at www.telescope-service.com , who seem to be doing a very good deal on the CGE at present (compared to UK prices anyway).... certainly worth an investigation if anyone is interested

Many thanks

Steve

Steve,

If you think you'll be spending a few years or more at this, then I would definetly recommend buying a decent mount.

From reading a few reviews of the CGE, I would be somewhat concerned about the large periodic error in the mount. Might make life difficult.

The Losmandy G11 Goto is reputed to be a great mount.

Clear skies,

Steve, it seems you missed the CorkAstronomy clubs 10" meade dob, think they sold it for 100€
Still beats me why they did not put it up for auction on ebay as it would have easily raised 3-4 times that
Im even more surprised that a club would even consider selling its telescope, maybe im incorrectly informed

From reading a few reviews of the CGE, I would be somewhat concerned about the large periodic error in the mount. Might make life difficult.

Got any links to any of those Michael, I;d be very interested to read those. I had an opportunity to hook up my autoguiding setup to a friends CGE a while back. It worked first time without any tweaking at all, just using the default parameters in guiddog. Over about a four hour period, only once did I see the error get over 1 arcsecond and not even once did it exceed two arcseconds. That was with a 14" SCT and a refractor sitting on top of it.

Lets face it, any mount in that price range is ultimately gonna have to be autoguided for any significant exposures. I read somewhere last night a guy claiming that the important factor is not necessarily the size of the periodic error but the periodicity of it. i.e. if the periodic error is long and slow its easily guided but if its short and large then it becomes more of a problem. From my own experience I would tend to agree.

Losmandy with goto 3195USD = 2,546.76EUR at todays rates So;

2546.76 + (say) 200eur shipping = 2746.76
2746.76 + 4.5% duty = 2862.12
2862.12 + 21% VAT =3463.16
Add a UPS handling charges and that means a G11 goto is gonna cost you €3,500 to arrive at your door.

The best price on the CGE I could find is David Hinds at 3250STG which works out at 4810euro. I dont know how much TS are looking for it (Steve says a good deal is on offer) but in fairness it would have to be a pretty good deal to compete with the G11 Goto on price.

Michael: how much is the Gemini G41??