Buying a Telescope and astrophotography

[Skalez (Stef)]

Hello,

I'm looking to buy a new telescope soon and I find myself really confused. I was looking at getting a 10 inch Dob and then got told they weren't very good for astrophotography so now I'm looking at buying a Skywatcher SW600.

I was just wondering if anyone could provide some advice or recomendations and if theres anyone who owns a Dob and has taken pics with it if they could tell me what they thought

Thanks very much

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi Stef and welcome to IceInSpace!

Who told you a 10" wasn't good? The dobsonian mount isn't good for astrophotography, but the OTA is just fine.

Does the skywatcher SW600 come with an EQ mount? That's an 8" reflector isn't it?

There's a very good astrophotography starter package for sale in IceTrade right now, a SW600 OTA and (separately) an EQ6 mount.
The only thing I'd do differently is use an ED80 or similar as the OTA, as starting with an 8-10" newt for deep-space astrophotography will be challenging.

However if you're doing lunar/planetary, the 10" newt OTA is perfect!

What do you want to photograph?
What is your budget?

Regarding the dobsonian, you CAN take pictures with it, but you're limited to the moon and some planets - see my article here:
Astrophotography with a Dob

[Skalez (Stef)]

I got told that 10" Dob wasnt good for taking photos by a sales man. I think maybe he was trying to get me to spend more money.

The SW600 comes with an EQ5 mount.

My budget is around $1000
and i would like to take photos of the moon, planets and maybe a few of the larger stars that are visible.

Thanks for the help Mike

[mick pinner]

hi Stef, in a way the salesman is right. astrophotos are taken in more ways than one.
in my opinion the vast majority of newbies that ask about astrophotography are not given all the info they need to know about the complexities involved.
if you just want to get a quick photo of a planet then sure you can stick a one shot camera to the eyepiece and there it is but if you are used to seeing nice crisp colour shots the experts have taken you will be sorely dissapointed.
when using a dob for astrophotography of the planets you will need a camera capable of taking video files, these need to be loaded on your computer and run through stacking software and processed which is another steep learning curve.
if using a mount such as the eq5 without good polar alignment and tracking, another learning curve, you are still confined to the process l have just described.
if you want to take a range of photos inc deep space objects min requirements are a mount preferably with go-to capability and good tracking ability and either a ccd camera or a dslr camera, example canon 400d.
along with this you will need some sort of imaging software for processing such as registax for video files or photoshop for dslr images.
please don't think l am being negative about anything l just think people need as much info as they can get before they start to try and capture those glossy pics they see in books, there is a lot of money to be spent along the way and it needs to be spent on the right things.
deceide what your interests are and get the hardware to suit.