I have been partly down the alley where you find yourself, now.
An impressive list of thoughts you have put together.
Good Hunt!
If you want to keep today's decision open for a future telescope you also need to consider the
weight the mount can carry and what your possible scope and gear will weigh together.
Reduce the manufacturer weight limit by one third and you have a realistic number.
A mount that is overloaded will not be stable enough for astrophotography and will soon suffer mechanically, too.
I decided against the
Celestron because of the bad manufacturing and aftersales support reviews I had read.
Vixen Polarie: shipment
within Australia not from US.
Polar Scope:
not useful in southern hemisphere because
Octans is hardly visible. (alternative means to align to South Celestial Pole: solar noon method, compass, trial and error, drift alignment )
Star alignment with an equatorial mount requires a visual aid - either the
life view of your camera mounted directly on the mount - or a scope of some sort - either a finder scope or a real telescope.
Auto-Guiding the mount with a computer running "PhD" (for example) and a supported camera for really loooong exposures:
My Sony camera is not supported and I didn't want to buy an extra one - so I didn't read up on that matter at all.
If yours isn't supported, either, your star alignment, leveling and SCP alignment has to be spot on to ensure that the tracking really works well for a while.
You will need
power to run your computerized mount if you are in the field. A 12V 900Amp jumpstart battery does it for me.
Re your shipment cost for items
from US:
Australia has several shops and you would find all mounts you mentioned in your country.
Orion's Atlas is branded Skywatcher NEQ6 and Orion's Orion is branded Skywatcher HEQ5 (Pro).
Setting-up time:
I am a noob so I need more time, still.
I have marked tripod legs locations in my drive way.
And since I have leveled the mount correctly for that location and done the rest of the preliminary setups, I am up and running with my camera within 15 minutes.
I am still improving the tracking by tweaking the alignment and balancing and everything.
My 200mm lens can do 10-13 seconds exposures before star trailing. I want to reach 30 seconds.
With 18mm, I am at almost 2 minutes. I want to reach 3.
Ah, btw:
I also
only want to do AP and needed a better mount than my barn door mount.
I had decided for a HEQ5 (Pro) (the GoTo version) to have room for a telescope for when I wanted to take the next step.
The HEQ5 would have been able to carry the biggest scope I ever would be able to lug around on my own: an 8" Newtonian.
I wouldn't be able to carry a bigger scope - so I didn't need the NEQ6.
- but fate threw a used EQ5 and 8" newt my way, 6 weeks ago.
So that's me: after 6 weeks of learning the ropes of what can go wrong, I have reached a pathetic 10 secs with 200mm.
I bet you will be quicker
