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With an equatorial mount you can do an accurate polar alignment without
being able to see the pole, by using the DARV method of drift aligning.
You can google DARV by Robert Vice, and jot down the instructions. After a bit of practice you can get precise alignment in 15-20 minutes.
As for a suitable rig under $1000, the only arrangement I can think of
is a 6" f/5 Newtonian on an EQ3 mount with dual axis motor drives and a
single speed focuser from Andrews for $899 or $999 with a dual speed focuser. Unfortunately it is not Go-To, so you have to find your own targets. With the above mentioned rig you could get exposures of 45-90 secs without guiding.The 6" has good light grasp, so you could get nice results by stacking subs of that length.
Small refractors would do a good job, but non APO ones suffer from chromatic aberration, which is bad news for your images.
If you really want Go-To you could find used gear in our classifieds
section.
raymo
Last edited by raymo; 30-06-2017 at 04:03 PM.
Reason: more text
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