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Old 03-09-2018, 06:21 PM
Malcolm
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Malcolm is offline
 
Join Date: May 2015
Location: Lismore NSW Australia
Posts: 242
Some dobsonians cannot reach prime focus with a dslr attached. You would likely have to use a barlow, which increases magnification. An alternative is to move the primary mirror forwards 25mm so the focal point can reach the focal plane of the camera. Ideally a dob is not suited for astrophotography. However, a SkyWatcher can reach focus with a dslr, and I know this as I've done it. Without tracking you'll be limited to lunar and planetary, and you'll need an eq mount, add extras for tube rings and dovetail, capable of carrying the weight of the OTA, the camera and possibly a guide-scope to do DSO's. Unless you can get a good score second-hand, you'll probably want to spend around 3k to get into astro-photography. Or, you could get a 10" SkyWatcher GOTO for under 2k, and either use a DSLR or a usb camera to do multiple 25sec exposures (before field rotation sets in) and software stack the images. Or, spend close to 2k on a mount, and another 1k on a refractor, which is what you need for taking pics ideally. So, you have to make a choice, visual or astro-photography, or buy both setups.
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