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If you started all over again, what would be your equipment choices?


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5 minutes ago, Alan64 said:

Ah, you live in a suburb of Lisbon.  Every little bit helps.  Photos may certainly be taken, and enjoyed; posting them for family and friends to see on social-media, perhaps in getting them interested in astronomy as well, then acquiring a telescope of their own as a result.  I take afocal-shots now and again through my telescope, with a small point-and-shoot camera, of even one or two objects that are a bit dim.

Suburb but very inside the "red" zone of the light pollution map.

About 120km from here I can get nice skies. Also in the north where I have family and go often. 

I will definitely try something like that :). I have an old canon 350d and a very new cellphone :)

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14 minutes ago, pedromreis said:

Suburb but very inside the "red" zone of the light pollution map.

About 120km from here I can get nice skies. Also in the north where I have family and go often. 

I will definitely try something like that :). I have an old canon 350d and a very new cellphone :)

You might find a smaller camera less cumbersome.  I use these smaller ones myself...

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In any event, it's best that the camera has a manual shutter, a low pixel-density for less noise, and capable of higher ISO settings.

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I can't see that I would do anything very different, which was to start with an inexpensive visual telescope and gradually work upwards to an imaging setup that would cost nearly 2500 UKP if ordered new today.  I certainly would not have ordered that last telescope as my first instrument - it would have seemed far too expensive. Some people are intent on trying deep sky imaging but I have avoided it so far.

Beyond that, my advice is no different from what I would put in any other 'What scope' thread:  make some basic decisions: do you want to 'keep it simple' or have all the electronic assistance (= GoTo) you can afford?  Get something that suits your situation (dark skies or urban murk) and your physical situation (how far to you need to carry it?).

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  • 1 month later...

A quick update.

Is difficult to buy new stuff nowadays, everything seems out-of-stock.

Also shipping to Portugal of used stuff is not easy to find, and sometimes the price itself is prohibiting..

So, fo now, I have on order a 150P-DS and a eq3 mount. Arriving in 2 weeks if I'm lucky.

Also I got a 9mm and a 20mm 62º LER eyepieces from Explore Scientific.

I hope this will be portable and versatile enough to get me started.

Thanks

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I'm starting again after an 8 year break due to been sick to death of so very few clear nights & inappropriate kit for what I was wanting to do.

 
So this time i'm able to 'start again' with the sort of kit I should have been looking at the first time around for imaging.
Heres my list :
Mount (Just purchased): Explore Scientific EXOS-2 PMC-Eight GOTO Mount

Scope: William Optics Zenithstar 73 II APO 2019

Camera: Canon EOS 700D (modified)

Field flattener: WO flattener/ reducer

Filter: optolong l‑extreme (for those moonlit nights that seem to always be clear)


This (or similar) is how I should have done it the first time I tried my hand at AP. The above are the most important, the rest will follow & are the usual AP related things, laptop, portable power station, dew heaters etc etc.

 

Edited by nephilim
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