Astrophotography set up

[pragmatist]

Would £2500 get me an astrophotography set up? How would you spend that for me? 

[Owmuchonomy]

Can you be more specific about what exactly you wish to image? It matters a lot to be honest.

[steppenwolf]

Deep Sky, solar system, what equipment (if any) do you already have?  More info. please.

[PhotoGav]

Yes, £2500 is a sensible starting budget, but be warned, you will need much more than that to do it 'properly'.

For starters, spend £21.75 on this: http://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html and then you will know how you want to spend your money yourself!

[SonnyE]

When I started off last year, my first concern was IF I wanted to spend a lot of money on this, considering I could look at everyone else's pictures on the web. That soon vanished with a big yes.

Then I realized I wanted to pursue the Nebulae of the skies. So that helped narrow it down to Deep Space Objects. (DSO) So I began compiling wish lists (3), and narrowing it down until I finally had my ideal of the "Right Stuff".

So you need to decide what you would like to do Astrophotography of, then look at what it takes for that. Wish lists are a great thing to narrow it down to a manageable budget. And they are entirely free.

In my case, I bet the different companies got to wishing I would buy something finally. ;^)

[pragmatist]

Sorry yes I should have mentioned I would like DSO's. I really wish I had kept my EQ6 now. I sold everything as I gave up the hobby for a time. I have been mulling a CPC 9.25 but actually think I would like to get into the dark side of astronomy. I could prob stretch to £3000

[DaveS]

As has been said, buy Making Every Photon Count first, but in the meantime you could be looking at a short fast semi-apo 'frac on a good mount. At this level (Which still counts as budget BTW) I would guess you will be using a DSLR, so it might be worth picking up an astro-modded Canon EOS series job.

What is your LP like? If it's bad at all, or even not particularly good then start looking at LP filters unless the local councils have gone over to LEDs which cannot be filtered.