I am thinking about perhaps dipping my toe in the "dark side" and getting an imaging kit together. Having read a lot and haunted these columns for a while I have a pretty good idea what I am going to need but I thought I might ask what others would do. I already have a Canon 400d (unmodded so a camera is not an urgent issue, but I would like a decent CCD in the future if this takes my fancy.
My particular interests are galaxies, it is what I spend most of my time observing visually, but want to use imaging to "see" more detail.
My budget is likely to be in the $5,000 or $10,000 range and wondered what others would look at if they had either of those 2 figures to spend.
Also a couple of others
1. Celestron CGEM mounts, anyone had any experience? From a quick look they have a fairly low capacity (18kgs) for the price (around $2200 to $2400) against an NEQ6 (20kgs and around $1600 to $1800). The only main attraction is they appear to have a Polar alignment function built in and I was wondering if this was worth the $$?
2. How are the GSO RCs going. I seem to remember that early reviews mentioned that the focuser was not the best, have they improved?
3. My SWMBO and I are looking at building a new hose in 4-5 years and I have mentioned
that I would like to include an observatory in the plans. Any suggestions re kit that could be used as a portable setup and later transferred to a permanent setup?
Malcolm
