Opinions on CGE Pro 1400 FASTAR Telescope?

Carl. Thanks for the frank and honest advice.
It's appreciated. Service IS everything indeed and
if there is no back up then what's the point in buying.
I'm definatly leaning away from the Celestron mount but
I'm still in there for the C14 OTA.
Eamonn. That Paramount you speak of sounds
great and an excellent price too!
I will do some looking into it.
Is it a mount that could be transported?

Frank

I'll let you know if the all star alignment works. I haven't used it yet. Scope arrive tomorrow. You need the upgradable hand controller for this . The older CGE's don't have this hand controller so you need to check the version or get a new controller.
If you are not into long expsoure photography how about a basic G11. I have seen a 12" newtonian on one of these complete with cameras. Damien peach used a C1700 which is basically a cut down G11.

Hi Frank,

Unless your the muscle man from Mecca, then its easy to lift.

Depending how accurate you want the tracking for long duration exposures then you'll have to precisely aligned using PoleAlignmax and T Point training each time you've geographically relocated. This will provide very accurate tracking without PEC. You can use up to C14 or 16inch SCT. The constant uplifting and placing down and realligning each time may wear the finer movements.

If your planning wide FOV imaging at around f/3 with either the C14 or 16 SCT then you'll need a large format camera.
This would be the closes specs to a Fastar. Reducers are available for this configuration. You then have the advantage of using wide fields at f/3 and close ups with telecompressors of X4 for planetary work.

In conclusion, if at all possible I would recommend a permanent set up.

I'm now Thinking seeing as I'm not into long exposure DS imaging
then a 2nd hand GT1100S would be a nice choice as a permanent
set up with as john says the likes of a G11 for travel to dark skies if needed.
As for OTA - C-14 but without fastar.

Frank_Ryan_jr wrote:

I'm now Thinking seeing as I'm not into long exposure DS imaging
then a 2nd hand GT1100S would be a nice choice as a permanent
set up with as john says the likes of a G11 for travel to dark skies if needed.
As for OTA - C-14 but without fastar.

That would be a nice set up:)
and if you do get into deep sky astrophotography you are well equiped.

Frank_Ryan_jr wrote:

I'm now Thinking seeing as I'm not into long exposure DS imaging
then a 2nd hand GT1100S would be a nice choice as a permanent
set up with as john says the likes of a G11 for travel to dark skies if needed.
As for OTA - C-14 but without fastar.

If you can get a GT1100S. I read on the yahoo group that only 75 of them were ever made.
tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SoftBisqUser/message/4391

Michael.