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All good responses. Yes it seems that there are a lot of journeys going on together with a lot of motherhood statements expressed.
I was hoping for as KRudd says a little more programatic specifity, but that is obviously my fault in the way I expressed the question.
Take for example the humble astronomical equatorial mount. Now I have owned a GM8, G11, Titan, EM-200, HEQ 5 so I know a little about the subject.
The HEQ6, the most sold mount in the world is on the face of all things that matter at $2K a godsend. It integrates nicely into a holistic system. it has bags of software support and nicely managed and mollykoddled it seems to do the job really well, but invariably at a certain weight point, which we wont argue here it seems to struggle and in conversations I see many imagers expressing a good deal of frustration. One of my current mounts the Tak Em-200 is smaller than the HEQ6 but I seem to be able to stack weight on it with almost no limit and it performs well. Unfortunately it is pretty much a dog to integrate into a holisitic system. Unquestionably you get what you pay for but also unquestionably the cost goes up exponentially in terms of performance gained.
It is not my intent in saying this to address the cost vs performance benefits of mounts as I know this has been dealt with in other threads. My intent is to explore the philosopy of why we consider these alternative strategies.
You could equally apply this to many other aspects of astro imaging. For instance Wodaski and deReght have a nice dialogue on Wodaski's site (I think) on the relative merits of high end optics vs Meade integrated optics although I notice they both opt for astro cooled cameras. The point is that de Reght argues that there is just as much satisfaction from making the flaky Meade system image friendly than Ron gains from his high end equipment.
Certainly, from my perspective in graduating from an EM-200 to a Losmandy Titan I found the upgrade to be highly satisfying in terms of performance, integration and weight bearing capacity and this enhanced satisfaction markedly. Interestingly I sold the Titan (which I regret) and kept the EM-200 because it was a lighter and more portable mount.
Further the issue of optics always fascinates me in that simple math in regard to the perfect optic will determine that there is little to be gained given certain seeing conditions beyond a certain aperture, and often CCD pixel sizes poorly match the optic. In this regard one is prone to ask "what is the motivating factor here because it aint rigourous scientific analysis" but anyway I digress.
I would be interested in finding out the answer to this question. If you inherited $100K and had no mortgage and a wife who made no claims to it (an impossibility I know but lets assume for the sake of the exercise) and you had no current equipment, how much would you devote to astroimaging, what would you buy in general rather than specific terms and why and when I say why what exactly are you attempting to approve or achieve?
As some responders have noted here philosophical navel gazing is not part of their psyche to wit they are classic existentialists, but there may be some out there who are prepared to spend 5 minutes contemplating this question.
Thanks in advance
Chris
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