Hello everyone, I recently got gifted a 6SE. I absolutely love it and understand what I can see. My question is I already know I'll want to get into DSO astrophotography. But I wanted to see what people thought on getting a ZWO filter wheel and a ZWO mono camera for the 6SE.
I'm getting the Sky-Watcher EQ6-R-Pro EQ mount, and my goal is to have the same mount to use for this scope and my eventual purchase of a specific astrophotography scope.
My hope is that I can get the camera and mount now to learn the basics through intermediate stuff with image processing now, then when I feel comfortable with all that use them on a scope that fits my interests specifically for DSO.
So my question is, it looks like I can get the camera no issue, but I'm having a hard time finding if anyone has hooked up the filter wheel to the 6SE, I saw some stuff about focal reducers (above my head at the moment), I just don't want to buy something and it not work for anything or even connect together. The camera I'm looking at is ZWO ASI585MM Pro
From my limited understanding, it seems you can use the filter wheel to take the single color images with the monochrome camera and then processing should be a little more straight forward.
I have a 6se and have used it for osc imaging so far, and I intend to use it with my new 294mm pro once the new equipment cloud curse ends.
It took me a bit of work to get it to a point where I can take astrobin worthy images with it. A focal reducer is a must. I used the celesteon .63 reducer, but I ran into problems when I put an auto focuser on it. I couldn't get the right back focus with my zwo filter drawer. I upgraded to the starizona .63 reducer (which actually is closer to F8). The native focal length is extremely difficult to get anything good out of it. Your guiding needs to be perfect, and it's actually closer to an f11 focal ratio, meaning to get any decent signal from the object you'll be shooting for at least 2 nights. With the 585, you'll only be able to take pics of planetary nebula and smaller galaxies. The correct backfocus is also kind of unknown for the native focal length. The coma is also ridiculous, but the 585 might be ok
Then, there were the guiding issues. Mounting the guide scope on the finder scope bracket didn't work because it wasn't sturdy enough. It also isn't directly in line with the dove tail, so it couldn't ever balance right. My stars were horrible egg shapes, and the whole image was blurry. I bought some clamping rings and a new dove tail from Agena Astro, then made my own custom guide scope bracket out of a carbon fiber hockey stick to keep the weight down. You could get a regular dove tail, the Eq6r is more than beefy enough. I have a hypertuned AVX
For your setup, I'd recommend the celestron reducer, which pairs well with the 585. An AsiAir to control everything, a bahtinov mask to get the focus right, the askar m54 off axis guider or the thinner touptek or qhy ones, a 220mm mini guide camera, the zwo mini5 position 1.25 inch filter wheel or the 8 position 1.25 inch, a set of spacer rings to get the 105mm of backfocus, a set of LRGB filters, the zwo set of 1.25 inch 7nm SHO filters, the Celestron c6 dew heater ring is also essential and a dew sheild.
If you wanted to put an auto focuser on it, you might be ok with the 585 and a bit longer back focus. The focuser is too close to the image train and can't have anything wide next to it, so your off axis guider will be touching the bottom corner of the focuser. To avoid the extra purchases and fabrication I did, you'll have to focus with the bahtinov mask every 4 hours or so from the mirror flop the the sct has
One thing that may help in your searching is to search for C6 instead of 6SE. Once you take the tube off the mount it came with, it's really just becomes a normal Celestron C6 SCT. The SE actually refers specifically to the mount (Celestron has multiple computerized alt-az mounts such as SLT, SE, Evo, and CPC).
A 585 sensor on a 1500mm focal length scope will give you a very narrow FOV.
If the DSO you want to image fit into this FOV, then it will work, otherwise, you will find yourself trying to do mosaics.
Your proposed setup will work, you just need an adapter from the back of the 6SE to a standard M48 diameter and thread pitch.
From there, you will have more than enough back spacing to fit in a filter wheel.
Other things that you should look into are a coma corrector as well as some method of guiding, since you will need it for DSO imaging. At your focal length, an OAG would be recommended.
Coma corrector for a c6...?
Won't there be coma? Or did you mean there isn't one that exists?
Oh I guess an older C6 will have coma, although I think suggesting to get a coma corrector might be misleading since your typical off the shelf coma corrector for a newtonian is going to be designed for a much faster scope.