Any recomendations for telescope type and magnification power for astrophotography?

Just wondering what everyone else uses or recommends really looking to spend no more than 700 bucks but 1000 max suggestions?

You need to be a little more specific when you refer to astrophotography. If you want to take pictures of the moon, 10x is usually fine, if you want deep space then you are talking many times that. Celestron makes some fine direct and catadioptric (mirror) telescopes and you can get adapters which allow you to mount your camera directly to the telescope along with other accessories. Many have automatic tripod heads which allow you to syncronize the movement of the telescope with the movement of the earth. Most are in your price guidlines except the catiodioptric ones with programmable tripod heads.

I have a Nexstar Celestron 102SLT.
have never had the time to venture into astro photography... though i will be learning it sometime soon
You'll obviously need a telescope and some mounts for both the scope and the camera to get started

If you are going to bother get a Genesis...

It all depends on what you want to image.planets.stars.deep space objects.the further you want to reach the bigger diameter you need it allows you to see dimmer objects.focal range gives you distance you can basically focus out to.a must is an equatorial mount in order to smoothly track objects...I.e. when I tracked saturn within 30 seconds I had to move scope due to distance out. When tacking the moon again the further in/closer you focus the faster it will move.reflector scopes are farly cheap and gve decent aperture to gather light for dimmer objects ck my gallery for ideas.also then you need to figure out type of photography to use afocal you line up camera with lens on and try to take pics through eyepiece. ..prime focus uses a t-ring adapte in place of our lens then insert into focus tube on scope..third option eyepiece projection adapters use a t-ring attached to a tube with eyepiece in it into focus tube my pics are. Prime focus the problem is a mirror cannot focus without a lens so I had to decide what to do .normal box store telescopes are pretty much limited to ..moon.jupiter.saturn.venus.sob either buy a bigger scope or be happy with being limited...so out came the wallet....im saving for a Schmidt cassegrain..its a crossbreed between a reflector and a refractor (catadioptric)

Hey mitch I bought a celestron cg5gt mount its equatorial motorized and can be pc control led and for the price range can carry the highest payload 35lbs roughly 800 $ if new half that if used ck cloudynights.com and sct start around 350 used for an 8" dia

I recently bought a NexStar 6SE but haven't yet been able to use it for more than moon shots. I am building up the kit, with a Celestron lens kit, a 7" external monitor, TheSkyX scope controller on my Mac, power pack to drive the scope, my camera (of course) and a stiff drink! Hoping for great photos as this is one heck of an investment.

hi johnathan,congrats on your new scope. i live in the city so have to contend with lp (light pollution)but occasionally get out to the country for darker skies.beyond your scope you will need a t-ring adapter for your camera or telextender depending on if you intend on doing prime or afocal. a moon filter is a good thing to have. after shooting for a while i added a diagonal so that i can see my cameras display to see what i got.i have found off axis guiders not very usefull due to size of internal mirror being so small it makes finding objects hard.i also added a green laser to aid in knowing where the scope is pointed or you can use a "raci" finder. bending down to contort your neck to try to figure out where your scope is pointed gets old quick.also look for a dew heater system otherwise dew collects on your objectives rather quickly and DONT EVER wipe your objectives as they scratch very easily.lol and of course start looking at photoshop programs.also of note your dslr screen will not always show dim objects since screen sensitivity is not as good as on your laptop.also download stellarium its free and will help you figure out whats in your sky and when/where.and last a battery pack so you can go out of city and still run equip. lots of luck and i wish you clear skies bro

patrick in memphis said:

hi johnathan,congrats on your new scope. i live in the city so have to contend with lp (light pollution)but occasionally get out to the country for darker skies.beyond your scope you will need a t-ring adapter for your camera or telextender depending on if you intend on doing prime or afocal. a moon filter is a good thing to have. after shooting for a while i added a diagonal so that i can see my cameras display to see what i got.i have found off axis guiders not very usefull due to size of internal mirror being so small it makes finding objects hard.i also added a green laser to aid in knowing where the scope is pointed or you can use a "raci" finder. bending down to contort your neck to try to figure out where your scope is pointed gets old quick.also look for a dew heater system otherwise dew collects on your objectives rather quickly and DONT EVER wipe your objectives as they scratch very easily.lol and of course start looking at photoshop programs.also of note your dslr screen will not always show dim objects since screen sensitivity is not as good as on your laptop.also download stellarium its free and will help you figure out whats in your sky and when/where.and last a battery pack so you can go out of city and still run equip. lots of luck and i wish you clear skies bro

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Thank you very much Patrick. I have the T-ring. I have a red dot on my scope for sighting (plus it has a go-to mount and tracker). I have a shoe-mounted Lilliput 7" external viewer. I have TheSkyX on my Mac that will control the scope as well. I just need to make it all work together! Had maybe three clear nights since I got it all so have not really been able to get it working. Do you have any ideas about an image stacker for the Mac as I understand that I shall need to overlay shots to get the good ones. I have Aperture for "everyday" photos but it doesn't seem to have that functionality. I have the external monitor (via HDMI) as the Mac doesn't have in input HDMI port (just output).

Hi Jonathan, sorry I don't have any ideas on stacking program for mac I run the infernal windowwwws..lol.check registax and deep sky stacker to see if they will run for you.I think that they are the most common.I personally have not had any success with them but lots of folks use them.it seems like every night I go to work its crystal clear out.arghhh.but winter is coming so clearer sky's are on there way.also lol I can't seem to get the whole moon in one shot on my 8" lx200.I bought a 6.3 focal reducer but have yet to be successfull with it.I thinkI need to take out my diagonal and crayford microfocuser.maybe my Iimage train is too long keeping me from acheiving focus????? Let me know if you have sucess

Also of not noel carboni made an astronomy add on for some of the processing programs check to see if he has one for your system...it greatly simplify processing and was like 20 $

Also of not noel carboni made an astronomy add on for some of the processing programs check to see if he has one for your system...it greatly simplify processing and was like 20 $....oh and buy some binoculars.to scout out objects you can see andromeda galaxy with binoculars....

patrick in memphis said:

Also of not noel carboni made an astronomy add on for some of the processing programs check to see if he has one for your system...it greatly simplify processing and was like 20 $....oh and buy some binoculars.to scout out objects you can see andromeda galaxy with binoculars....

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I'll look into that. I have good binockers (but not mounted), but why would I need those if I've got an £900 'scope?!?!?!?!

patrick in memphis said:

Also of not noel carboni made an astronomy add on for some of the processing programs check to see if he has one for your system...it greatly simplify processing and was like 20 $....oh and buy some binoculars.to scout out objects you can see andromeda galaxy with binoculars....

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It is around $21 but it's a PhotoShop add-in (for Mac and Windoze) and I don't have PS< and don't want to as I want to avoid buying loads of different software to edit photos (insofar as I can).

The reason that you would want binoculars is easy..when you look through a telescope everything is magnified so much its like having tunnel vision but when you use binoculars there is much less magnification therefor much greater feild of view.for instance when looking for comets you would not just randomly move your telescope around trying to find a comet first you can find it with binocs then aim your scope in that direction...

I've only been doing this for about a year but I'm learning from friends who have been doing it much longer....I still have a lot to learn...

patrick in memphis said:

The reason that you would want binoculars is easy..when you look through a telescope everything is magnified so much its like having tunnel vision but when you use binoculars there is much less magnification therefor much greater feild of view.for instance when looking for comets you would not just randomly move your telescope around trying to find a comet first you can find it with binocs then aim your scope in that direction...

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Okay - I buy that!

Still trying to find software that will work on a Mac, with my D3100 and allow stacking!

Sorry ...johnation binoc don't have to be mounted regular ones are just fine

Got it. I guess I need to join a club, too, but there are none suitable within an hour's car travel. Guess I'm stuck with this motley crew!

Ck helicon focus...zerene focus..and star stax for mac