Meade 80mm ED Triplet Apo (80/480) on black EQ-6
I am incredibly happy with the 80mm APO from Meade. I kept the 6" SC anyway and I sold the Newton. For asteroids, ISS transits and minor planets as well as comets the C6 is simply the better choice. Since I am a big fan of deepsky images, I needed a telescope with a larger field of view. Therefore I bought the refractor additionally. Now the desire for a more stable mount has come. My NEQ-5, which accompanied me for a long time, had to change the owner. In return an old EQ-6 now carries the telescopes. For photographing deepsky objects a ZWO ASI1600MC Pro cooled is still used. For planets and moon I use the ZWO ASI178MC and for deepsky it is my guide camera. The guidescope is a 60mm Omegon Microspeed. For filters I swear on Baader. H-alpha and OIII complement my RGB images. Only my UV/IR cut filter is from Astronomik.
Celestron C6 SC XLT - 150/1500mm on an NEQ-5
The Schmidt-Cassegrain made the whole observation easier. It was more handy, had the same aperture as the Newton but due to the longer focal length higher magnifications were possible. Observing the planets and the moon was a lot of fun. The electronic tracking of the new bought and more stable NEQ-5 gave me the opportunity to start astrophotography. First I took photos with a small planetary camera, the Celestron NexImage 5 and afterwards with the ZWO ASI178MC (color). Deepsky objects were very difficult to photograph with these cameras. Therefore I bought the ZWO ASI1600MC Pro cooled in 2018.
from left to right: Celestron NexImage 5, ZWO ASI178MC (color), ZWO ASI1600MC Pro cooled
Celestron 6" (150mm) f/5 Newtonian on an EQ-3
My first telescope was a 6" Newton on a very shaky EQ-3 from Skywatcher. With it I started my first hours under the night sky. But with this telescope only visually. I still remember very well the many hours in which I searched for nebulae or galaxies manually in the sky, only with star map and viewfinder. I always found planets quite fast and for this the telescope was perfect. But slowly the desire for something more compact, a Schmidt-Cassegrain, developed. And also the mount was much too small for the Newton. With each observation you had to let the telescope swing out.