|
Forget your current scope mount and camera.
One wastes so much time and money on short cuts that simply dont work and moreover ignoring just what everybody is using to take great astronomy photos.
If you want to save money build your own wedge it will work as bought one, then take very short exposures and that will work if you take thousands...but your compromise will probably never make you happy unless you just want to produce results with using inappropriate equipment...and have folk always saying " not bad considering you are using the wrong gear".
Save money and go for a decent equatorial mount..start big say EQ 6.... but a HEQ5 with a triplet 80mm scope and a mono cooled camera and 8 filters gives excellent results... or get a decent triplet refractor 100mm to 120mm or a 8 inch to 10 inch Newtonian with a coma corrector ( me I would get a second set of additional mounting brackets, I did, and at some point a decent focuser ...manual is ok just one that works well)...and dont forget...a dedicated astronomy camera..cooled mono with at least RBG and L filters but also Ha, S11 and O 11 better still.
Believe me you will not be saving money sticking to what you have...but what you will do is waste much time realising that I just now gave you the best advice...now I bet you will say buy Alex I dont have $10k or $12k...well of course you wont ...either get it from your account at the bank that has money in it our from their account which has money in it..they will almost certainly lend it to you..if they wont lend any money you should concentrate on your career and forget about any hobby you currently have...if you need to borrow it, whilst you earn more money or rearrange your assets, borrowing should get you on the right track...$12,000 over five years will cost you interest but believe me its worth it ...find out how much it costs a week...I bet less than what many folk spend on take away coffee...what do spend on coffee or take away meals?...even with interest it will be under $10 a day...and remember..this will never work if you keep telling yourself that you cant afford it...just stop talking yourself out of it...and if at the end of five years you sell it and get more than half back...do you think you will not be more than rewarded by the experience of taking satisfying deep sky photos...
Sell you current equipment if you dont want to keep it for terrestrial photography and visual observation but please dont throw money at a mod unless it relates to your interest in terrestrial photography.
Now it will be interesting to see who disagrees with me and determine if we can air an alternate opinion.
Good luck start buying tomorrow.
Alex
|