[Taters (Liam)]

This is 100% hypothetical, I don't have authorization or a budget or a plan, but who doesn't like the thought experiment of spending someone else's money?

What is your ideal rig for education/outreach/citizen science?

I'm a maths/science/physics teacher at a high school, and I want to create an astronomy club as part of the school's extension program. Ideally I'm looking for a portable system capable of visual observing and imaging. One of the major foci of the school is community engagement so think: "star parties and newsworthy contributions". Can you think of any citizen science projects a small and intermittent setup could contribute towards? I know I could just invite a local astro club to the school but I want something I can run as a lunchtime club with regular observing nights that the school can promote.

The school has an active "maker" culture so I'd like to encourage students to create things like 3d printing bahtinov masks and other little DIY projects. We also have some VERY enthusiastic students who would really jump into some deep research projects, I'd like them to recreate Ole Romer's discovery by using the eclipses of Saturn's moons to estimate the speed of light, make regular observations of the Galilean moons to estimate their orbits, and create images of planets and DSOs which can be used instead of "off the shelf" posters in the labs.

The location is "outer suburbs" which will make observing and imaging DSOs difficult but not impossible, ideally I'd like to get a small roll-off observatory but there's no way the government will approve that so the setup will have to be tripod (or pier) mounted somewhere on the grounds and able to travel away for school camps. I've been doing astrophotography for over 20 years and have an undergrad in astrophysics so I'm comfortable with things like EQ mounts and imaging techniques, but ideally the system could be used by other teachers and students under supervision.

It's been years since I did any DSO imaging and I don't know any of the new technologies. My current thoughts: the new SeeStar50 looks cool, but lacks visual observing and I think it's a bit underwhelming to go to a star party to look at images on someone's ipad.

Step zero for me for ANY beginner setup is always a Dobsonian, maybe a 6" or 8". A future plan for me would be for the students to build a DIY Dob as a long term project, something like a 10-12" lightbridge with 3d printed parts and DIY encoders.

For the main rig I'm thinking a setup which can be built up slowly: an EQ mount and a small reflector or refractor? Eyepieces and a basic camera.
Then: Guidescope + autoguider, monochrome camera + filter wheel, electronic focuser...
The ZWO ASIAIR+ setups I'm seeing on youtube look cool, GoTo with plate solving, integrated support for guiding, dithering, filters, and capture really appeals to me (but does the anodize come in anything except red?)

I'd love to hear your thoughts, if you were starting from scratch how would you build a simple to use, portable, capable, imaging/visual rig? Go nuts, have fun with it, what is possible for less than $5000? What would you do with $25,000? Is it practical to do amateur radio astronomy? Spectroscopy?