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Camera lens or refractor.


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I'm having a look around but not finding much luck. I was looking to try and pick up a camera lens that was "cheap" got good results and would double up a bit because of the APS-C. I've not really had much luck finding a 250mm fixed lens. Someone said about getting a small refractor but from what I know a cheap refractor isn't worth it because of all the problems it'll cause, CA, etc. That said does anyone have any info on this? I'm looking to pick up a tracker, either the SkyGuider Pro or the SA2i, unsure for now. Really I was looking at a budget of £150 for the lens but I can push to £200 and perhaps a little bit more if a good option is just over the £200 mark.

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Refractors (not cheap ones) have great resolution and less issue with light bouncing around because they have a simple lens system, unlike camera lenses. However, I have been able to successfully image Andromeda with a 70-200mm lens (without the tracker - I have the SA2i). This was done with a full frame Nikon D780 and Nikkor 70-200mm - 216 images stacked with 50 dark frames. The tracker would have decreased the number of frames and ISO required but I didn't have it on hand. A full frame 200mm lens on your crop sensor camera (depending if it is a Nikon or Canon) would have resulted in a focal length of 300mm or 320mm respectively.

See if you can find a fast used lens (f/2.8 or faster). Photographing planets are (very) difficult with a camera lens but deep sky objects and moon work great.

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