[RussellH]

Hi and welcome to IIS, it’s a great community here.

I’m just setting up for AP myself, so can’t provide a lot of practical advice, but I can relate what I’ve found in my search that may be relevant.

It seems money isn’t a big issue to you, so that’s good. I have a very constrained budget, so was going cheap as possible on everything. I already have DSLR’s, so that was no cost. All up so far I’ve spent about $2,500. My mount was $1,100, scope about $500, and the rest has been the bare necessities to join it all together and hook up to my computer. So don’t forget to factor in all the extras you need.

I bought a 2nd hand HEQ5 Pro, and while I couldn’t afford anything more, I am already regretting I couldn’t go for the EQ6 to get an 8” newt instead of a 6”, so I think you’ve made a good choice in mount. I didn’t even consider alt-az, I think EQ is the way to go.

Getting the newt was my personal choice. Most of the advice I got was to get an 80mm refractor as a starter, which probably would have been great as well, and much easier to carry around than a newt, I just prefer newts for little reasons that aren’t that relevant. I think the 100 will be great. I’ve seen a couple (not the majority) advise starting with a 100 instead of an 80. You just might need a focal reducer if you want some wider field imaging.

One final thing regarding the DSLR. While I will have lots of fun with it, I’m already thinking about things a dedicated cooled ASI like the 1600 could do for me that the DSLR can’t. Don’t know if I’ll ever be able to afford one of those so I haven’t even bothered investigating, but if money is no object, you might need to think about exactly what you want to image to make sure the DSLR can and can’t do for you. I’m sure other more i formed people can give you more advice on that than I can.

Russell.