Skinnypuppy71

Yeah..thanks.I'm aware of those products but was thinking along the lines of killing two birds with one stone so to speak...a mount for imaging with the camera that would also double as my mount for observing when the time comes.

Hi guys I need a wee bit of help A year or so ago I bought myself a skywatcher explorer 150pds and a skywatcher star discovery mount...yes the mount wasn't quite upto the weight of the 150...anyway due to financial constraints I had to sell both and accessories last summer...I now am ready to take some baby steps to getting back into this fantastic hobby...I am first and foremost a keen amateur landscape photographer but I also want to view and do a bit of light imaging of the night sky....yes I know it's a rabbit hole.I have at the moment a pair of 20x80 Opticron Oregon bins, Sony a7 mirrorless camera, 16-35mm f4, 85mm f1.8 and a 28-70 kit lens..a giottos carbon tripod with a vanguard b-100 head...I'm not too fussy about getting a new scope at the moment as I can use the bins....but would like to know the best way forward for a mount that will track the stars for the camera with the option of a scope in the future.(for visual observing)as I don't really want to go down the guidscope and a endless money pit that scope imaging enters us into.I would rather buy the correct item from the off as I know the pitfalls of buying the incorrect gear only having to upgrade further down the road and spending unnecessary amounts of money...I would be quite happy with the 150 pds again (in the future)or similar as a guide for what the mount would be partenerd with at a later time....hope this makes sense to you guy's . thanks for any help.

In the photography world..f stop is related to the amount of light a lens let's into the camera sensor...f1.8 very wide aperture (fast lens)and enabling faster shutter speeds f22 very narrow aperture and slower shutter speeds and as focal length increases so does the length of time the shutter needs to gather the required amount of light....it pretty much translates over to telescopes in much the same way...but instead of sensors...we use our eyes. A f5 telescope is also related to the amount of light it gathers.....a 750mm focal length scope with a 150mm(6inch)aperture...750mm divided by 150mm =5 the f number of the scope..so for this scopes focal length /aperture,it is a fast scope it allows more light gathering ability than say a 1500 mm scope with the same aperture....1500 divided by 150=10....f10...the focal length of this scope related to it's aperture let's less light through and therefore the image will be less brighter than the f5 scope . you'd have to double the aperture of the 1500mm scope for the same light gathering ability of the 750/150mm scope...but in turn it'd be able to retrieve the light from much dimmer objects with it's longer focal length this would then become a very expensive scope I'd imagine....especially in refractor from.lol.I hope I have done a decent job of explaining as I'm pretty new to telescopes myself but more in tune with camera's and lenses.lol.