Photo-astronomy

[355858]

Hi guys looking at buying a telescope don't want to really pay more than £150-200, I need to be able to attach my nikon D90 to it for photos..

What would you suggest?

Ben

[barkis]

Hi. Ben,

My suggestion is Skywatcher Explorer 150P EQ3-2,

but you need another £20.

Ron.

[riklaunim]

I have that 150/750 SkyWatcher but if you want to take pictures with the eq3-2 mount you need extra at least 1-axis driver for it, and polar finder for eq3-2 would be nice too. And Nicon T2 adapter ring.

[355858]

ok, so how much would these adapters be? what sort of photos would i be looking at getting?

[riklaunim]

Lunary, planetary and other with short exposures. On good aligned mount you can probably get max 1 min exposures (webcam, ccd cam, DSLR may take a bit more exposure time than a planetary ccc/webcam).

For Deep Sky you would have to get a better mount (HEQ-5) and invest in some guiding (and the newton will require coma corrector). It isn't cheap

[ollypenrice]

I agree. The photos you see posted on the forrum are mostly taken with sophisticated kit. This means an autoguider (2nd telescope and fast camera constantly correcting the mount every second or less) and a mount at least at the level of an HEQ5 Pro. Ironically the bit that doesn't have to cost a fortune is the telescope itself.

Olly