Budget DSO setup advice needed

[Guest]

Well I have been well and truly hooked and am already starting to slip down the slippery slope of equipment breeding!!

I purchased my first scope and setup about 10 days ago (Celestron 130 SLT with NexImage 5 camera) - I am loving the ability to take planetary and lunar images but very much interested in starting to work through captures of DSO's - perhaps I should have researched a bit more before taking the initial plunge!

I do not currently own a DSLR so want to purchase some additional equipment to help with my DSO endeavor. Having spent over £1000 already in the last fortnight I would like to try and add this additional capability on a limited budget.

My proposal is to purchase a new Sky-watcher Startravel 102T OTA (£165) and a second hand Canon EOS 600D DSLR (£160).

I would then use the scope on my NexStar goto mount. I appreciate it is an Alt-Az mount so not ideal but hopefully that would enable me to take some shorter exposure subs of the brighter Messier objects until such time as I can justify more cost (and a goto equitorial mount). I am considering a smaller refactor due to light pollution from a total of 4 street lights visible from the garden!

I would greatly appreciate any advise on whether this would be a reasonable setup given the limited additional budget or whether there are other scopes/cameras that may achieve the results I need at a similar cost.

Many thanks in advance.

Clear skies.

[Cosmic Geoff]

I have a Startravel 102mm (which I think costs rather more than £165 these days) and a Nexstar SLT mount, and have used this combo with an ASI224MC planetary camera to image a few galaxies - essentially this is an EEVA setup. With live stacking and exposures measured in seconds, I produced some images that accurately imitated the visual view through my 203mm SCT - in other words, faint fuzzy grey blobs, looking nothing like the images captured by other people's long exposures.

To do much better than this, I expect you would have to spend the neccessary budget on a serious mount and scope, as advised (often) in this forum and in the book "Make Every Photon Count." Trying to do deep space astrophotography on the cheap is almost certain to lead to disappointment.

[Guest]

Thanks for the advice, I suspected this was the case and have opted to purchase the Canon 600D at this time and use it a bit with my 130 SLT (With barlow to achieve focus). When budget allows I will probably go with an 80ED with HEQ5 - better to spend once than spend twice and lose money!

[Andy Till]

I am awating a 6OOD at at the moment, cost £165.

I've also got a ST80,  and a SVBONY SV48 90mm F5.5 2" Refractor on the way.

 

[Guest]

By way of update, I have ordered a used Canon EOS 600D which arrives tomorrow and am the lookout for a used Sky-watcher 72ED or 80ED which seems a reasonable scope for beginner astrophotography being apochomatic and would be dual purpose as a good travel scope. These items do not feel like wasting money whilst being somewhat budget conscious. Next purchase after that will be a motorised EQ mount then ... guide scope ... and guide camera. Oh this slope is certainly very slippery!