[Dilsh]

Hi all,

First post on this forum but have been reading for months. Amazing wealth of information here!!

I am a complete newbie. A Canon 1100D is the only things close to AP that I own.

After lots of indecisiveness and tackling aperture/focal length envy I have settled on what I think is the best path for me in astrophotography.

Just a bit of background. I am a dad of 2 so will be doing most of AP from my backyard which is probably a Bortle 6-7 (from inner metro Melbourne).

Ultimately I would like to like to capture DSOs like the Southern Pinwheel and Sculttor galaxies but I realise that requires focal lenth, aperture and very good tracking with guiding, which I will not be able to do for awhile.

From my reading it seems a fast refractor seems to be the most sensible way to get the basics down pat.

An APO doublet seems to be the best bang for buck in this regard and I I have currently settled on a skywatcher ED80 (while always keeping an eye on the classifieds). As a beginner scope I did not want to spend too much (i.e. a high end triplet).

Once I get the hang of things, I was thinking of purchasing something like the celestron 9.25SCT. The variable focal lengths means I can recapture some of the DSOs I found with the ED80 and also look at Galaxies and planets.

With this future journey in mind, what mount should I get? Will the Eq6-r pro handle something like a 9.25SCT with all the bits attached?

Have a picked the correct two telescopes for my future aspirations?

Thanks in advance,

Dilsh