Beginners plan for wide shots

[Walky]

Hi! Many seeing nights for 2012 to you all. I am a, hum, beginner.

The newest and less knowledgeable of them all is here. I am just starting with a Canon 550 D and a Canon sx30 (surprising camera) ! My tripod is nothing special, the only special thing is a quick release thingy, and must of the technical talk about equipment and the stars here is like Chinese for me.I use Lightroom to process. I am starting a long journey, I know.

First:

I have seen beautiful, detailed photos of nebulae with just a 70-300 lens. Is that really possible? Unfortunately mine went dead recently. Of course i am interested in wide angle shots, have the std. 18-55 and a 55-250 lens for the 550 D and a 1.8 50mm which has worked vey well.

Equipment:

I don't expect to buy a telescope anywhere soon, though my brother has offered an Orion one ( which, i dont know) but would like to spend my money in a GOTO mount (conceptual) to which I could attach my camera to find targets, since I don't know where to find anything. I usually shoot at what i see, and have an external Haier monitor to guide me. A star map between 20 - 30 degrees I saw in Amazon, is something I think would be helpful. All of these I say to find what you think about this plan and if I am following a viable strategy.

Goal:

My first interest is of taking a photo of the milky way and I guess I need the capability of this mount, which should be able to track the stars. I think I need to take many pics on the same spot for this and I need the tracking, am I right? Then comes the issue of locating it. That is my first goal for 2012; in summary.

I have been reading postings an enjoying your postings. During the day I will post a few photos I took yesterday, of what I can see from my patio.

I hope to see comments on my project. Needless to say, I am fascinated with the universe and it's wonders, specially the stars and space. I am 64 and getting a little younger every day.

[Tinker1947]

Download Stellarium, that will allow you to find stuff to shoot, Deep Sky Stacker will stack your shots, as for a mount if its just the Canon and a lens a EQ3 Pro will do the tracking...

First Light Optics - Skywatcher EQ3 PRO Synscan GOTO

DeepSkyStacker - Free

Stellarium

[Demonperformer]

Goal: My first interest is of taking a photo of the milky way

Others can give much better advice than me on equipment, but one thing you will definitely need to photograph the MW is a dark sky site - very dark sky.

[Walky]

Thats the least I have in Florida. What about the sky maps in Amazon, are they any help? They look like a circle with 1-2 sliding circles on the outside. It seems 20 to 30 degrees will give me the florida skies.

Thank you!

[Walky]

Thanks for the inputs. The stacker program is for Windows, I use a Mac.I found Lynkeos that should do the job. Still doing stills when I have less than perfect sky.