PhilB61

I agree with a previous poster, try with the camera you already have, lots to learn and it's quite possible to get very good images with older cameras. A remote programmable intervalometer will make things easier, I picked up a wireless one for my Nikon for less than £20. If you do decide to upgrade the camera,  I wouldn't get a D3400/3500 series as they are not natively compatible with many imaging acquisition programmes via usb, the D5200 and above are and also have a tilting screen. As you are planning to use relatively lightweight camera and lens another option for the mount would be to get an AZ-GTI,  they come up regularly on Astro Buy Sell and Ebay for about the same cost as a complete Onstep kit for your existing mount. 

Great image but agree the halos are distracting. As previously mentioned this may not be a camera/sensor issue so just changing the camera without diagnosing or ruling out other possibilities could be an expensive and futile mistake.

Nothing scientific I'm afraid, It was the default setting in NINA for my camera. And as it seemed to work well and I'm not very experienced with a dedicated astro camera plus having limited imaging time I've not yet experimented with anything else. 

I have the colour version of the Altair IMX571 camera and use nina with the default Gain 100 and Offset 275, HGC mode on and generally 180s exposures in Bortle 4 with no filters. This seems to work well for me.

As previously mentioned try storing your images locally at the telescope,  don't try and download them at the same time as controlling your system, do it at the end of the session or in the morning. My system is windows based, I remote desktop over wifi from inside to a laptop at the telescope end and the only time it hasn't worked well was when I tried downloading at the same time as an imaging run. What I now do is run a sequence in NINA which starts the image download automatically at the end of my imaging session using the Robocopy plugin. In my experience Windows, NINA and Remote Desktop just works, every time, with my mix of hardware from different manufacturers, iOptron mount, Altair Cooled Hypercam,  ZWO EAF, and ZWO guidecam. 

I mainly use a 72ed with a aps-c sensor, with flattener but not reducer works really well, good framing of Horsehead and Flame, North Amercan Nebula, M42, Rosette M31 Plaides etc, as previously mentioned focuser only just able to hold when pointing straight up but does work and once focus set it can be locked. In last month I have just fitted a ZWO EAF, which has transformed the ease of accurate focusing using NINA auto focus routine. 

I've stopped looking at the Clear Outside app as I find it overly pessimistic in its predictions, quite often windows of clear weather, admittedly sometimes only for an hour or two, appear which just don't show up on the app. But I agree it can be hard to maintain enthusiasm through long periods of bad weather and/or when you set up late evening in beautiful clear skies and the clouds roll in just as you are polar aligning, this has happened to me twice in the last 2 weeks. However, I'm relatively new to the hobby, this being my third year in total and second year of imaging so lots to learn and practice, which definitely helps during the periods of poor weather, I also have other active sports/hobbies with which to fill my time. I find having something to look forward to really helps, I'm lucky enough to be able to spend a number of months each winter in Spain so take all my gear with me and do a lot of my imaging there, but other shorter holidays or trips to dark skies also help when it feels like its been raining for weeks on end. Ultimately only you can decide if its time to give up, you will have to weigh up the balance of pleasure, contentment and satisfaction when the weather and everything else comes together against the periods of frustration when it doesn't. 

My experience so far primarily imaging with a Nikon D7500 unmodded,  no amp glow and very low noise even up tp 300s, I've been blown away with the quality of the images this can produce, but as it's also my daytime use camera was very aware of the rising shutter count especially when taking calibration frames into account.  So just recently purchased a Hypercam AA26C (IMX571 sensor), only managed about 4 hours of data so far, and slightly disappointed, significantly higher noise and less detail with cooled astro camera although much more information in the H alpha areas. But the big difference is that the DSLR images have all been taken in bortle 3/4 skies and the new AA26C images from B6/7 skies no filters used for either. So where you shoot from and what filters you use may have a more significant impact on the final image than what camera you use. I am hoping that when I return to B3/4 skies shortly I can start to see the benefits of the cooled astro camera, if the clouds and rain ever stop!

I presume this is the older USB2.0 version camera, I found that with both the native driver and the Ascom driver things were pretty unreliable, missing frames , missing parts or bands in images etc, especially if trying anything other than native resolution. However if you only want to guide using PHD2 with it, try installing the ASI Directshow driver and select Windows WDM - webcam as the camera. For me it just works, every time and never drops frames and you can still control all the camera settings. I have probably done 60hrs of imaging this way this year and it has never failed once. I use a 5m USB2 active cable so frame rates are pretty low but not an issue for guiding, might be if you want to use it for planetary imaging though. 

Hi, if its been in dry storage I would expect it to be fine mechanically, although you may want to consider refreshing the grease on the worm/gears at some point. The handset button cell battery will need to be replaced, but the handset should still work, it just wont retain date and time etc when you power off. If you intend to connect to a computer you may find that you need to update software/firmware and any drivers. I would just try it, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.