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Old 16-12-2008, 07:22 PM
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Kal (Andrew)
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Sydney
Posts: 1,845
I think you should view your astrophotgraphy path as a journey, and start off with a setup where you can learn and refine your skills before advancing. The EQ6 would be a good start platform. To that I would add two refractors, you will be able to image through either, and guide through the other. For visual it's all about aperture, for photography, aperture is far less important, so a couple of good starter scopes would be one of the common 80mm FPL-53 doublets (there are several brands of these and plenty available on the second hand market if you are patient), and maybe a william optics 66mm. You could also maybe go a bit larger, the 102mm FPL? doublets that are around give some good results too. Make sure it has a decent focuser to support the camera weight.

For a camera, I'd suggest a DSLR. You can get one brand new for under 1K, or even a modified one (extra hydrogen alpha sensitivity through a change of the filter) second hand for under 1K. You can go film, but look around in the photography section of these forums. No one uses film anymore. When you spend 10 hours capturing, and you develop to realise your stars aren't focused, you've just wasted an entire night. The digital age gives instant results, ready for post processing, and to be honest, the cameras aren't expensive.

Additional costs will include mounting hardware/guide camera/field flatteners/software (you might already have photoshop?), you will have to factor this in.

Do you have a notebook for running guide cameras/capture software?
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