Telescope

[Ameesa]

Hey guys been stargazing for about 10 months now thinking about upgrading to maybe a cassegrain telescope not sure which one. Looking at ones around 1000 mark as I would like to get into astrophotography. I'm currently using an Orion starblast 6. Any help would be great something that can be used for astrophotography too.

[Waldemar]

Hi Ameesa, welcome to the forum.
Depending on what you want to image, a SCT is not an easy start with astrophotography....
For planets and moon, okay, but for DSO's it is better to choose a fast refractor or a Newtonian like the 130 or 150 PDS
As has been advised many times, do yourself a favor and buy this book: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html

Edited August 17, 2019 by Waldemar

[Ameesa]

Hey ill have a look at it. Couple other things wats PDS and SCT? Also I don't know if this SkyWatcher AllView Camera and Telescope GOTO Mount is any good but it was something I was thinking bout getting at some point. A couple telescopes I was looking at were Orion StarSeeker IV 150mm Mak-Cass GoTo or the 127 mainly because my other other one is an Orion and had no issues with it.

[Waldemar]

SCT is an acronym for Schmidt-Cassegrain-Telescope. 
PDS is the type of a SkyWatcher 130 0r 150 mm Newtonian with a shorter tube, so it will be better suited for Astrophotography:

The new Sky-Watcher Explorer-130P DS has the same superb parabolic primary mirror as the Explorer-130P but features a 1.25"/2" Dual-Speed 10:1 ratio focuser for enhanced focus control and a shorter tube length with the secondary mirror positioned closer to the primary mirror for more convenient prime-focus photography. 

The Explorer 130pDS is a surprisingly capable imaging Newtonian, check out the images and discussion from owners at Stargazerslounge:
https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/210593-imaging-with-the-130pds/

"Hey ill have a look at it"...A look IN it would be better... All your questions will be answered in an understandable fashion.]😉

[Ameesa]

kool have a look into it, just wonder but from what ive been reading that book isnt avaliable in a ebook yet? kinda want to start reading it now but im down in new zealand so gonna be a while before i get it

[Ameesa]

thxs very much for your input waldemar find a skywatcher 150mm and 200mm on my local site the 150 is an explorer dont know what branch the 200mm is through skywatcher. not im debutting if i get that with that SkyWatcher AllView Camera and Telescope GOTO Mount. might wait till i read abit of that book not really in too much of a hurry just wanted some ideas of where to go to next. 

Edited August 17, 2019 by Ameesa

[Waldemar]

6 minutes ago, Ameesa said:

thxs very much for your input waldemar find a skywatcher 150mm and 200mm on my local site the 150 is an explorer dont know what branch the 200mm is through skywatcher. not im debutting if i get that with that SkyWatcher AllView Camera and Telescope GOTO Mount. might wait till i read abit of that book not really in too much of a hurry just wanted some ideas of where to go to next. 

That's the way, Ameesa! Take your time, don't rush anything. If going for SkyWatcher, make sure to get one for imaging, for an imaging scope can be used for visual, the other way around, you will have to change the scope.

[Ameesa]

yea so long as i can so use it to star gaze and then for photography which i most likely will get into, be nice to take pictures of the things i see show them to the family or something when i go up north. one other thing any good eyepieces i should look out for? I'm not to bothered about cost maybe something in the mid to high end or so, at the moment just got the 2 from star blast 6" and i brought a celestron power seeker kit i think it was called and 1 19mm orion widefield oh and i got a 4 element high power orion 2x barlow, just been make do with this when it isn't raining lol

[Cosmic Geoff]

Newbies tend to assume by default that they can image with the same sort of telescope used for visual observing, but this is only true to a limited extent.

You may imagine that you need a large aperture for imaging, but you don't - see the link here for image of M31 taken with a 30mm finderscope.

You may think that a visual mount is adequate for imaging, but in general they're not - the requirements for imaging are far more demanding.  You can buy an expensive SCT on a GoTo mount and find that the mount is useless for deep-space imaging.