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Old 15-10-2019, 06:49 PM
adiastro.photo (Adi)
adiastro.photo

adiastro.photo is offline
 
Join Date: Oct 2019
Location: Sydney
Posts: 12
Nimble astrophotography telescope recommendations

Hi, I'm keen to try astrophotography. I've mostly done landscapes and nightscapes. I have shot milky way and aurora nightscapes with my micro 4/3 camera (Lumix DMC-GF1). Sample photos here: https://www.instagram.com/adiastrophoto.au/
I want to try to shoot the moon, nebulae and galaxies.
Keen to do planetary imaging as well but from what I read that will require completely different gear and will be more expensive due to the long focal length requirements.

So I'm looking for my first telescope, budget is $1200 max. I quite like the William Optics Zenithstar 73 APO. I'm also thinking about WO z61 or RedCat. I don't want to limit my options to William Optics but I can't seem to find other ones with the weight and form factor that I want to keep minimum. So experts, any suggestions?

However, the more I read William Optics reviews the more I think they're a bit biased. Eg. AstroBackyard mentioned good things about RedCat but anywhere else says something along the lines of "puny apeture, basically a telescopic lens or finderscope not a telescope, niche only"

I live in light polluted area in Sydney (last I checked I'm in bortle 6) and can't afford to do narrowband imaging yet as the filters are prohibitively expensive.
So I travel a bit further out of Sydney during new moon and bring my gear with me when I go overseas if I know I'm going to be in the countryside. As such, portability is key to me.
I'm looking for a setup that weighs less than 8kg in total. Any more than this will not be feasible to bring on air travel. Form factor is also key: all gear need to fit inside my luggage and/or backpack.

So far I have the following gear:
- Tripod (aluminium, will upgrade to carbon fibre soon)
- Skywatcher adventurer mini star tracker + wedge
- Skywatcher Az-GTi mount
- Counterweight (probably 600-700g)
- Lumix DMC-GF1 (no $ to upgrade) with 14mm and 20mm wide angle lenses. Not planning to invest in any telephoto lenses either.
- Plus the standard accessories like intervalometer, levels, etc.

I also want a telescope that can last for a while, instead of something that a beginner will have to part with as they become intermediate astrophotographers.
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