KP82

Magnetic counterweights towards the front part of the scope

24mm 68 degree gives the widest possible fov for the 1.25" format and ES68 24 is a very good performer among all the 24/68 eyepieces, possibly only beaten by TV Panoptic 24. A 30mm 1.25" plossl will not be wider than this, but will produce less magnification and bigger exit pupil which could result in a brighter background depending on the level of your local light pollution. The BST 12mm produces very good views for its price. I had one before and loved it. The BST 25mm is the weakest of all the starguiders. I'd definitely choose ES68 24 over it unless I was on a low budget.

Date/Time data must be entered every time you switch on the mount as the hand controller does not have a built-in RTC. Once you're at the home screen on the hand controller, you can follow my previous steps to slew the mount. There is no need to do the star alignment.

Both the EQ5 and Skytee 2 use the SW 1.75" steel leg tripod which is too big for your balcony as explained by @Cosmic Geoff. IMHO a small tabletop dob could be a good option for you. For example this one: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes/skywatcher-heritage-130p-flextube.html

You first need to press '3' to choose the slew rate. Then you can use the directional keys to slew the mount. No prior star alignment required

If the North Celestial Pole region is visible, it will make polar alignment a lot easier. With tools like sharpcap or polemaster, precise polar alignment can be achieved in just a few minutes. Otherwise you will need to rely on drift align which can take over 30 minutes and you will first need to learn this technique. There are software designed to help with this also (e.g. PHD2 drift align tool), but they won't speed up the process. You will simply be staring at your computer screen instead of peeking through an eyepiece.

It's not only the focal length of the C9.25 that isn't suitable for beginner imaging, but also its focal ratio and sample rate. f/10 is awfully slow. Compare that to a f/5-ish refractor or newt, you will need 4x amount of exposure time to get the same SNR in your image. Also you'll be oversampling with most popular cameras (e.g. DSLR, 294MC, 1600MM, etc.) unless you use binning which is again not for beginners.

+2 for what stu said. If your budget only allows for 1 scope + mount at the moment and you want to be able to cover both visual and imaging, your best option would be either 130PDS or a 4" ED doublet like this one + the SW HEQ5 Pro mount. You won't save any weight with a dedicated astro camera because the CCD/CMOS + the set point cooling system + all the extension tubes are simply as heavy if not heavier than a compact DSLR. If you've got multiple DSLRs, it may be worth getting one of them astro modded. Learning imaging with a large 8" newt could be very challenging. You might get frustrated because you were not getting the results you hoped for. A short focal length refractor + a flattener is probably the best starting point.

GOTO Alt-az mounts track by adjusting both axises at the same time. This results in field rotation therefore not suitable for imaging. EQ mounts if not properly polar aligned (>5 arcmins) suffer from the same issue.

They do track the targets. AFAIK all GOTO mounts track.

The Sky tee 2 would get my vote. If you go for that, make sure to replace the stock saddle with a better quality aftermarket one (e.g. ADM dual saddle). I used to have a Altair Sabre v2. While it was solid, smooth and lightweight, the lack of slow-mo control was a big let down for me. Some users claim they can track objects easily without the slow-mo knobs, but for me I would either overshoot or introduce unnecessary vibration especially at high magnifications. The Berlebach Castor and Giro Ercole are both in this category. If you have the budget for a premium quality manual alt-az mount, take a look at Losmandy AZ8 or Rowan AZ100. Both can be equipped with optional encoder + DSC to help locating targets.

As long as you haven't adjusted the altitude/azimuth knobs nor moved the tripod legs, polar alignment will not be affected. One trick to use when observing with a newt on an EQ mount is to have its focuser pointing upwards when it's in the parked position. Doing so would ensure the eyepiece will always be in a fairly comfortable angle except when looking at any objects in the vicinity of the NCP.

The 2/3 star alignment is only required for visual without the aid of any imaging equipment. The process relies on stars that are low in DEC and far away from each other in order to train the coordinate system on any GOTO mounts. That's why the SynScan hand controller often picks stars that might be blocked by nearby trees and buildings if you have a limited view of the sky. For imaging once your mount is properly polar aligned (Sharpcap does a great job on that), simply slew to the target with any planetarium software (e.g. Stellarium, CDC) and then plate solve to centre it. Most popular imaging software have plate solver built in (actually they just directly communicate with another dedicated solver such as ASTAP and astrometry.net in the background). The aforementioned APT is one of them. Another popular choice is SGP. Personally I use BYEOS which is a very nice program but only for Canon cameras. If you're comfortable with Linux, you could also try KStars/Ekos with INDI. Ekos provides everything you would need for imaging including capture sequence, plate solving and guiding (although many still prefer PHD2).

5mm or 8mm BST starguiders are your best bet.

Yes, SW AZ-GTi is supported with the EQMOD driver in INDI.

The cheapest option would be to get a RPi 4B 2GB and install Astroberry (INDI server) on it. Then install KStars/Ekos on your Mac and connect them to the INDI server. Alternatively you could also VNC into the RPi and run KStars/Ekos/PHD2 locally. RPi 4B is powerful enough to run these smoothly.

BST Starguider would get my vote. With £200 you can get 4 of them to fill the entire focal range. For eyepieces that are just above £100, ES68 would be my choice. The SW 200P dob is often recommended as a beginner scope. But it is by no means a low-end model that would soon reach its limit. In fact it can be the scope for life for many users.

Unless you have a permanent setup in a home observatory, setting up the imaging rig does take quite some time. Personally it takes me about 45 mins to set up everything from scratch to be ready to start the capture sequence. For visual it's a completely different story. I can be out with my dob in 5 mins and start with low power sweeping immediately. Even if I decide to use my refractor on a GOTO EQ mount, I can be observing in about 10 mins. My DIY eFinder does precise GOTO with plate solving, so apart from a rough polar alignment I don't need to waste any time on 2/3 star alignment or searching for targets with low power eyepiece after an inaccurate GOTO.

I believe AstroTortilla is no longer in active development, so there might be compatibility issues on new systems. I used to have it installed with BYEOS for plate solving, but have switched to ASTAP now. If you manage to get AstroTortilla running, you will need to update Cygwin to the latest version as the included one is very very old. However doing so would require you to re-compile astrometry.net in Cygwin. If you need the instructions on how to re-compile astrometry.net in Cygwin, let me know. I've written down the steps when I did it myself before.

All my imaging sessions have been in my backyard, so I've always used 12V PSUs off the main. As for visual at dark sites, my field battery is a Celestron LiFePO4 which is portable and hassle free. One full charge lasts several 2 - 3h sessions.

Askar is a subsidiary of Sharpstar, so basically all these scopes come from the same maker. The Askar FRA400 is a quintuplet where as the sharpstar EDPH are just standard triplets. Sharpstar make some really nice scopes. It is probably one of the best brands among the mass produced Chinese scopes. I love my APM 107 which is another triplet made by sharpstar.

Battery performance decreases rapidly as the temperature drops. If you image in your backyard, I'd suggest you get a longer extension and run everything off the main.

Skywatcher/Celestron/Orion 9x50 straight-thru finderscope can easily be converted to a guidescope with a C mount adapter + ZWO ASI 120MM Mini guide camera. The focal length is 180mm. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/guide-scopes/sky-watcher-9x50-finder-adapter-zwo-asi120mm-bundle.html There is also a T adapter available for this type of finderscope, so you can use other astro cameras with a T2 thread.

In terms of optical quality, the 6" newt in the 3rd link is probably the best. However it comes with a manual EQ mount which might be a bit awkward to use for beginners. The Meade 80mm refractor comes with a GOTO Alt-Az mount so should be the easiest to use. Although it's an achro, f/10 should ensure minimal CA in the views. However its capability of light grasp is significantly lower than the 6" newt, so not very useful for viewing DSOs except for those few bright ones. Avoid the Celestron 127EQ as it has a bird jones optical design (spherical mirror with a corrector lens) which produces poor views.

Here is the detail of this diy electronic finderscope I posted on CN. I'd like to hear from those who have also tried this if you've got any suggestions for further improvements.