Paolo Silvestri

Hi everyone, I recently decided to get a 70-200 f2.8 lens or similar (liek 80-200 nikkor) to mount on my Nikon D3300 and Star Adventurer, because as a landscape photographer I feel I will use way more a tele lens than a telescope. It will be a graduation present, so I hope no budget limit. My question is: which lens to choose? In order to capture some extra details I'll most likely add a teleconverter 2x if the choice will be a 70-200, otherwise I'm considering a 100-400 Sigma or Tamron but I can't find anything about how they perform. Thanks for your advices.

Greetings everyone. Few months ago I wrote a post about a small refractor to mount on a Star Adventurer, but I'm now considering fast tele lens like the Nikon 80-200 f2.8. My question is: what is the best tele lens to get pictures of Andromeda galaxy, Orion, Soul, Hearth nebula and stuff like these? If I'd pick a 70-200 f2.8 lens, can I plug a teleconverter 2x to get better crop without losing details? I've attached a picture taken with my Nikon D3300 and 18-105 kit lens, as you can see it's quite small (forget about the quality, it was also quite foggy back then). Thanks in ad

Gosh, just the field flattener is 235€...including the recommended extension tube it's 700€. With 10€ less there is the Tecnosky quad 65/420.

The star adventurer seems to perform good at focal <400mm as shown by some samples on astrobin, as it can easily keep tracking for about 2 mins. The Ioptron shown on Astrobackyard goes the same, my only doubt is about which refractor to buy, tbh I don't know much about other options but the Z61, which is a bit expensive cause it does not come out with the flattener (and it costs a lot too).

So, should I go for the WO Z61 (360mm) even though there is a quad for about only 50€ more? Anyway thanks for the suggestions.

Already considered that option, but the fact is I'd rather use more portable setup. Plus, I mainly shoot landscapes and timelapse, that setup would be a waste in my hands. Besides, in used markets I haven't found anything close to that price. I feel a serious eq mount should be used often, I can rarely find some time for me to shoot, that's the problem sadly.

2.8 kg or 6.2 lbs, with 420 focal lenght at 65mm aperture. My only concern is about the lenght, cause I've read the SA has some issues in tracking with 400+mm lens.

I'm afraid that short focal lenght (in comparison to a 300-360mm scope) would not be enough to capture much details. I'd like to get a picture of only Andromeda or only Orion nebula with almost no surrounding at all. Well the price in euro is slightly different. The scope is 530€ and the flattener is 190. And yes I was wrong, it is 720€ (636£) but still not so different from a quadruplet. Idk now

I started considering the WO z61 after Trevor from Astrobackyard's review, though with the field flattener it will cost around 800€. At the same price there is the TS optics imaging star 65q which is a quadruplet, so no flattener required.

I forgot to mention, the purpose of the lens would be capturing nebulae like the Orion one, Soul and Heart maybe and, why not, even Andromeda or other visible galaxies at max 400mm. So I've considered even taking a 100-400 lens from Sigma or Tamron, but I don't know how do they perform cause on Astrobin (I saw a lot of samples) there is not too much. My biggest concern is about the focal lenght: would images taken at 400mm be sharp as 100mm? Btw on Astrobin there are a lot of samples of pictures taken using a 72mm refractor on a star adventurer or skyguider pro from Ioptron. If someone has mor

Greetings everyone, I am a student with a recent strong interest in astrophotography. I currently use a Nikon D3300 and I plan to get for my graduation a small refractor and a tracker mount, most likely a star adventurer. My question is, which is the best/most stuitable apochromatic refractor to use with the SA? The budget would be around 1000€ for all the setup. Thank you in advance and clear skies!!