EntropyTango

Finally managed to capture the star clouds around Antares. The weather where I live has been terrible, so nice to get a clear night without Moon for a change Pentax K3, Old Thorium coated Pentax 55mm F1.8 @ F2.8, Star Adventurer Pro 2 187 x 30 secs, DSS & Ps 21.28

Got my dates wrong as I started imaging before midnight. So it was all the 1st of may anyway. Just the old ED80 for the closeup. Victoria, Australia, Pentax K3, SMC 24mm F2.8 for the wide field image

One day before or the morning of the 30th

Well all my scopes get used. But generally the Astro-Physics Star12 ED gets the most time. Reasons: Image quality, Very light weight for its size, Focal length of 1000mm

Amazing image and I love your colours

It's hard to do both visual and AP on a limited budget. My personal opinion is that you should do some visual astronomy before you do imaging. Dobs are great visually but limited in AP terms without some equatorial platform. So if you have your heart set on AP and don't mind the travel and setup time it's probably best to invest in a decent equatorial mount. Then you can get a small refractor for your AP and something like and an 8" F4/5 newtonian for visual work. (good for AP too) As Clarkey mentioned AP can be a rabbithole in terms of money, especially if you are a perfectionist If you have a DSLR already this can be a great starting point before buying a dedicated astro-cam That would leave more money for the mount and scope Good luck and clear skies (just a note about the RC8, they are great scopes but a pain to collimate and the long FL amplifies tracking errors, I would suggest a decent quality small refractor instead)

...mmmm...It might be time for a Nikon service centre You could try and disassemble it yourself for a quicker and cheaper fix, but so much could go wrong I have a Pentax ME that I left out in the rain with the lens off. And discovered it in the morning, I took the battery out and the film was just soaked. It still works today (well not much film work recently) So there is always hope

I recommend silicone grease for rack and pinion focusers

Drifter wrote: "a comet with a core lump that creates a natural nuclear explosion at it’s high velocity...." Unfortunately even fast travelling comets do not create the temperatures or pressures to create a nuclear explosion (especially Fusion) I would go with the Russian rather than the Italian report. Not long ago Italian scientists claimed to have measured neutrino's travelling faster than light! And quite simply a cometary nucleus would leave little debis to be found, especially as it was some time between the event and the expedition. It just sounds like revisionist scientific history to me.

I use a QHY5-III-224C for planetary and Solar. It's a bit old now but works well for me. I'm sure these would be pretty cheap on the secondary market

Not a bad start, 47 Tuc is a target few northerners get to see. Maybe consider shorter exposures and a stacking program. Deep Sky Stacker is a free program that will help

Welcome, there are even Dutchies in Australia The weather is generally better but not in the last few months

I have a few of the ES 100 degree EP's up to 9mm. ES does do a 5.5mm in 2" so in theory you could go 2" all the way. (some TV's below this too I think) I have a very nice Astro-Physics 2" barlow that gets a bit of use in imaging sometimes. Being the lazy kind, I prefer just to reach for the right focal lengths straight off the tray But a lot depends on your telescopes, budget, style of observing, eye relief etc. Barlowed 2" EP's can give you better eye relief I believe than their native counterparts I only use 1.25" for 6.7, 5.5 and 4.7mm which is easy, as these are only planetary targets for me

A fantastic start, well done What equipment did you use?