Telescope recomendation

[Bully]

Hello all,

I have been out of the astronomy game for quite a few years now and have to decided to get back into it. I am mainly going to be focusing on astro photography and am currently interested in hearing peoples recommendations. I am looking at roughly a computerized 8" with a focal length of at least 1500. I am open to all suggestions and recommendations of all shapes and sizes.

Thanks.

[Slawomir]

Hi Sam,

Welcome back to this wonderful hobby/obsession of ours.

I do not know whether or not you have some astro-imaging experience; if you are just getting started with astrophotography for the first time, I would highly recommend getting a small refracting telescope (a triplet) with a quality automated focuser and with f-ratio around f/5 to f/6, and match it with a camera that would give you around 2-3 arcseconds per pixel, ideally with a dedicated OAG and all of that on the best mount you can buy.

In the end it almost entirely depends on your budget. Larger telescopes are great and almost everyone in here would love a larger one than they currently own, but unfortunately larger telescopes require larger mounts and more accurate guiding, larger CCDs, larger filters, larger correctors, larger focusers... = more $$$

There have been some outstanding astro-images presented here on IIS taken with 3-4" telescopes, so unless you really want to image galaxies, starting with a smaller telescope may be just easier = more fun.

Just my two cents :)

[lazjen]

There's so many variables to what you can do, but probably the biggest thing to work out is your budget. From there you can start to map out what might be possible to get.

You need to keep in mind that depending on your approach, you could end up wanting or needing to buy a lot of kit to get anywhere - and that may include non obvious things like software, a decent computer for processing images, etc.

[Wavytone]

And be prepared to pay $$$ for a decent mount.

[Bully]

Yeah i am prepared to spend around 3k on the telescope alone. Mounting wont be an issue as i will be making a high qaulity portable mount myself to accomodate future attacthments. I have done a little astrophot previously but i will want to learn the telescope inside and out before playing with astrophotography.

[Atmos]

As has been suggested, start with the best mount you can afford and then work backwards from there. If you mount a $400 6" newt with the cheapest DSLR on the market on a decent mount you'll get very good results.
Put an excellent $15,000 telescope and camera setup on a less than ideal mount and you'll never achieve anything. The Sky Watcher HEQ5 and NEQ6 range and a very good place to start.