Expanding into Astrophotography: Seeking Recommendations for a £300 Telescope

[Digz]

Hiya all.

I stumbled across this site whilst doing some research for a telescope and it looks like a wealth of knowledge here.

Ive posting the astrophotography section as this is an area I want to expand into.

Ive been into astronomy for a few year and my partner got me a celestron 675 telescope a couple of years ago.

I am also a keen amateur photographer and have been doing it for a few years also. I want to expand my photography skills into astrophotography.

So I have a question - can anyone recommend a telescope for around £300 that I can upgrade my Celestron with. I am keen to develop my astrophotography so I would be looking for one with a automated tracking or a GOTO system. I've read about the various type of telescopes around and got myself confused now as to what to go for so any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks

Digz

 

[turbo]

With that budget, I would suggest that you look for a telescope with a motorized equatorial mount, but with no GOTO features, or other automated functions. If you want to do astrophotography, your primary concern should be the quality of the optical tube assembly and the sturdiness of the mount. Depending on the weight of the camera (and guidescope assembly), a mount that is OK for a particular OTA may be inadequate when adding the extra gear. The more money you spend on bells and whistles, the cheaper the optics and mount must be to hit your budget. If you want to see what kind of results you can get with amateur equipment (even little 80mm refractors) you may want to visit Our Dark Skies forum. Many of the members are VERY serious about astrophotography and they will gladly explain the advantages and disadvantages of various pieces of gear.

http://forum.ourdarkskies.com/

Here is a thread in which I posted a reprocessed scan of a widefield photograph that I took over 20 years ago by piggybacking my camera on top of my telescope. In this case, the camera and lens did all the work and my main telescope was just used to guide the exposure so the stars didn't trail.

http://forum.ourdarkskies.com/index.php?showtopic=16698&hl=

 

[Digz]

ok that's very helpful, much appreciated Turbo. I've just joined to other forum so Ill post a thread for some help there.

Thanks again

What do you mean see through naked eye? Care to expand .ultimate?