ETX-125 good for astrophotography?

Hi all,
After a long, LONG while talking, emailing & surfing around I've made the jump and bought a Meade ETX-125 PE.

The word is it's a great all-rounder.
I like the portability of it
(along with the handyness of the Level North Technology ..Goto ..Etc..)
Looks good for Moon & Planets and most Deep Sky Objects.

I am however a little concerned the long focal ratio will make it tricky for astrophotography.
Some of the pics out there would leade you to believe it can do amazing things (which I'm sure it can piggybacked onto an LX200 or whatever!)


Has anyone any experience with this scope?

Any help is much appreciated!

Frank.

I'd suggest having a look at this site: www.weasner.com/etx/menu.html .

Frank,

My first attempt at doing astrophotography with the ETX-125 got me this shoot of Jupiter:

That should give you an indication of the potential, Weasner's site has some excellent examples of what is capable with the ETX-125

Clear skies,
Darragh

Nice one Darragh.
What camera / exp. etc. did you use?
Have you tried a webcam?

Frank,

I used a Canon 350D, the exposure time was 0.4seconds at ISO100.

I am currently thinking about moving to a webcam setup, see the Webcams and barlows v powermates thread on the astro-photography board

Clear skies
Darragh

Interesting..
the webcam is definatly an area I want to explore later too...
I was looking at the ToUcam..
I wonder what kind of success you would have with that & the ETX-125.
Good for planets I'd say but I cant see it doing great things on deep sky objects..
Have you looked at any of the Meade DSI progs?


I'd like to give the 'traditional' (for the want of a better word)
method a try first,
I'm looking at getting the T Adapters and mounting
my Minolta XG-M 35mm SLR onto the ETX125.