What next?

[dannybgoode]

7 hours ago, wimvb said:

That argument is one of the reasons why I bought Pixinsight some three years ago. It has so far saved me roughly 200 €. Pay once, cry once.

But I agree on the rest.

 

Until you have to pay for the next version of course. 
 

I can see both sides to the argument subscription licenses but given how expensive PS CS was I worked out that assuming you always kept it up to date and assuming you bought a legit copy of PS and LR it’s take many years of subs until it started costing you more. 
 

Of course if you choose not to update your software with each release this doesn’t hold so true but with PS CS costing somewhere around £650 and LR another £100 or so you’re still looking at 6 years of subs before it cost you more to subscribe. And I don’t have £750 up front for software so it actually suits me just fine. 
 

Am currently trying to decide whether to go APP or PI for my initial data processing but PS is a useful tool in the armoury. But then I do a lot of terrestrial photography too  

[wimvb]

7 minutes ago, dannybgoode said:

Until you have to pay for the next version of course. 

That's not going to happen anytime soon. The next version you'd have to pay for is 2.0. The newest version is 1.8.8, while I bought 1.8.4. Version 2.0 isn't even on the drawing board yet. Pixinsight is cheaper.

Otoh, if you do daytime photography, PS clearly is the better choice. 

[dannybgoode]

19 minutes ago, wimvb said:

That's not going to happen anytime soon. The next version you'd have to pay for is 2.0. The newest version is 1.8.8, while I bought 1.8.4. Version 2.0 isn't even on the drawing board yet. Pixinsight is cheaper.

Otoh, if you do daytime photography, PS clearly is the better choice. 

Very true however Adobe has a long history of yearly or biannual major updates so the model has always been a bit different. 
 

I do need to try PI tough to determine whether I can get on with it. I have the book just not the software   

Anyway I’m at risk of derailing this thread so I’ll shut up now   

To the OP - get a really good mount next and everything else can follow...

[tomato]

+1 for Startools as value for money processing software. I use GIMP quite a bit, I find it reasonably stable.

Like you, I prefer to image galaxies rather than nebulae, but I am fortunate in having a less light polluted sky. 

A dedicated Astro camera makes a massive difference, there are dozens of galaxy targets that will fit on a ASI 178 sensor (around £350), and you could just image in mono initially. The CMOS technology works well with lots of shorter exposures so cooling and to some extent guiding are not of paramount importance.

A larger sensor and NB filters would solve your light pollution, but I think it is important to image the targets you enjoy.