I'm interested in this aspect too. Can you give prices for those pieces of equipment. I understand the principles of the equatorial mount, are they really so hard to get the hang of?
I have done some photography through a telescope but it was back in 1986 when I used a friend's Celestron (either 6 0r 8", don't quote me) and we got great shots by getting up at 2am in March and catching it on the way in. We drove to a dark spot and connected the tracking up to the car battery,as I remember. It was near Canberra and bloody freezing!
But I do have great slides which I need to dig out and scan.
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Originally Posted by montewilson
Hi Alex - the mount is where you will sink or swim. I would suggest an EQ5 or EQ6 as a good start. The "6" is probably far more than you need to start with but look at the style at least.
Then get a small scope say 60 - 80 mm. An ED-80 comes to mind.
Learn how to polar align it (which is not simple and will take you a few weeks to become whip-ass at it) then you can use the camera mounted next to or on top of the scope and take some wide field shots with your existing lenses.
This will give you some cool wide field shots and much encouragement. You could consider getting an autoguider or a webcam-software based autoguider and take longer exposures.
When you have all that beaten, get an adaptor to attach your camera to the scope and a field flattener. You may need to get another small scope (not a really high quality one) to use as a guide scope as the main scope will be busy.
Can I suggest you join or at least meet with one of the SEQ Astro clubs? There are some great and active ones in your area. Go out on a dark sky night with them and see what they are using. You will find it is not far from what I have suggested.
This advice is what will make the difference between you staying in this hobby and having magazine quality pictures or leaving astronomy. We've seen it so many times before.
PS I started more or less like this with film in 1992 and my early widefield shots with a 50mm lens gave me so much pride and satisfaction and 16 years later I am still taking pictures.
Good luck!
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