drkztan

Yeah thanks, this is somewhat what I wanted, i must have missed your first comment. I looked for a DIY solution but all I found was flimsy mounts, this one is by far the sturdiest i've seen, i'll see if I can do something of my own. Personally knowing NEMA motors, I won't even begin to try to design an enclosure that can hold a lot of weight, as this requires mechanical engineering that I'm not trained in for the gearing ratios and stuff for amplifying strength. I'll definitely try making something that can hold smaller stuff, like just the camera tho. I went down to my local shop and I can grab an EQ5 manual mount and a 150PDS which the guy at the shop told me would be decent enough for both some astro and visual for a bit more than my original budget. I'll worry about getting a DIY kit to make the EQ5 track later on, i've seen them for around 100€. Does the 150PDS sound right? It is this kit: here

Yeah, I'm familiar with ''infinite upgrade'' hobbies. I'm a software dev, i'm into 3D printers and robotics. Actually, I work at a robotics company haha I'm fully aware that there will always be a 'next big upgrade' you can get for virtually anything, I'm just trying to find out what is the best combination of parts for this particular budget bracket. If that means a visual-first oriented setup then that's fine, at the end of the day it seems any mount that can do eq tracking is enough to hold just my camera to do some tracked shots without telescopes, and these mounts can hold a visual oriented scope when i'm not shooting.

Budget is 500€, can stretch a bit if the difference is worth it. I thought the 76mm Newtonian was a pretty good deal tho? That sucks, i thought i had found something nice and cheap, i found similiar tubes going for much more used. Would the ''upper tier'' of gear for this budget be something like a Skywatcher NEQ5 ( 390€ ) + AR motor for it for around 100€ to have something upgradeable that can fit larger stuff? Maybe throw in the 20€ 76mm tube just to have something while I save up for more stuff? haha The NEQ3 with a goto already installed for 325€ would get me most of the way though, is there nothing I can pair this with to get a nice visual setup while using the NEQ3 for astro without scopes or with small scopes?

Hi guys! So, I'm looking into getting a scope. I enjoy astrophotography, my cam setup is fine at the moment for wide field (A6400 + samyang 12mm f2.0) untracked photos. I have found quite a few things I could buy within my budget so I'll just lay everything out below (in bold and underlined), with a TLDR list of things+prices at the end if you don't feel like reading my ramblings. At first I thought the best thing to do was just to get something like a Skywatcher Adventure 2i kit for astrophoto (388€) so I could have tracked photos. Thing is, my lens has such a wide FOV I don't think that makes much sense. Also, this mount seems to be a bit limited on the weight department, and I like the idea of getting a scope for visual that might also work ok if I hooked up my camera to it, so I think I would pass the weight pretty quickly. Then I started to look for used mounts that would allow me to have an astrophoto setup that also allowed me to use a scope+camera. I found a used NEQ3 mount with the synscan goto installed for 325€. Looking around a bit more, I found on local marketplaces used Skyscan 2001 mounts(as low as 60€), which seem to be EQ3-2 according to my search on the internet. These, obviously, do not have any motors installed. Are these a better deal than the NEQ3 if I can get it motorized? Anyone know if they can even be motorized to begin with, and around what price I can expect the kit to cost? On the tube side of things, I seem to have hit the mother of deals and found a Pentaflex 76/700 for 20€ which I'm praying to god is OK when I go down to see it in person later this week because goddamm that's cheap. I bought a sbvony collimator to bring with me to check the collimation just in case. This would make a pentaflex 76/700 + skyscan 2001 mount setup for around 80€. I also found interesting ''all in one'' type deals for used Nexstar scopes locally, dunno if these would overall give me a better bang for my buck: 114/1000 nexstar + barlow5x + solar filter + 1.5x erecting lens+ original tripod = 225€ Skywatcher 130 + EQ2 mount = 150€ celestron 127 SLT with a nexstar SE mount instead of the original, this mount has a built-in wedge to use as EQ= 400€ nexstar 4GT = 340€ nexstar 127 SLT with case (the case looks amazing tbh haha) = 400€ nexstar 127 SLT scope only = 220€ skywatcher 130/900 + skyscan 2001 + 2 random ass eyepieces I'll most likely change = 125€ EQ3-2 mount with goto = 300€ (this is is the only item that would be shipped, kinda worried about that) (adding back the other deals in the 'hard to read' part) skywatcher adventure 2i full kit = 388€ NEQ3 + synscan goto = 325€ sky scan 2001 mount = 60€ pentaflex 76/700 = 20€ I would like to have a setup with good upgrade potential. Can anyone help me sort through this mess? haha

Hi guys! I'm interested in astrophoto/DSOs, new to the telescope side of the hobby