I've never looked at the sky other than with my own eyes. My sister wants me to recommend her a telescope so I've been browsing for a few days. Now I'm also excited about looking at nebula and galaxies, and maybe taking some deep space photos with my Nikon D40 and HD Video with the Canon HV20. We will be observing in Whittlesea, Warrandyte and Phillip Island areas.
I don't know how much money I'll need to spend or what to expect. We're splitting the costs so I have about $700 to play with. Basically I'd just like some recommendations thrown at me based on this list:
1. Want to see colourful nebulas, maybe some galaxies. Planets are interesting but we both are more curious about deep space objects. This is the most important point.
2. Ease of use and portability. One person should be able to set up quickly and pack it away each night.
3. Astrophotography. Taking pics and video with the equipment I own would be nice but from what i've read this is a very labourious task?
4. Upgradeablity. Adding a motor, eypeices, changeable mount/stands would be a plus, and maybe adding imaging capability later on if not immediately viable.
The refractor scopes sound appealing as they don't flip the image and are said to be better suited to astrophotography. These are some of the scopes I've considered:
Celestron Astromaster 130EQ. (130mm Newt on EQ stand) Approx $400
Skywatcher SW-600 200 x 1000P EQ5. $799.00 AUD (but over budget
)
Meade 8" truss dob. $700 or bigger generic type truss from Andrews
Skywatcher 150 x 750 OTA + seperate stand. (probably over budget)
There seems to be multiple versions of the same type of scope. This is very confusing and the prices are all over the place. I'm willing to pay a premium if there is a shopfront in Melbourne (for warranty purposes).
Thanks in advance for your opinions. I've read some scope choice articles but somehow this only left me with more questions. BTW, can you see deep space objects clearly with binoculars?