Well, I finally took the astrophotography "plunge"...........

STM

Senior Member
I have been shooting the moon for years with lots of success but after photographing (or rather trying in my opinion at least) to photograph the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction the other night and not being at all happy with the results, I decided to get a telescope. The Celestron Nexstar 8 SE was very highly rated and the package I got from Adorama should satisfy me for many years to come. I have always had an interest in the stars and planets but never really did much to photograph them. Growing up in the 60's with the space race between us and the Ruskies in a full gallop, I like nearly every red blooded American kid, became intensely interested in space.

Below is the package I got from Adorama. Like seemingly every middle-end telescope online, regardless of manufacture, they are all backordered so it could be March before I actually see it!

telescope.jpg
 

Peter7100

Senior Member
Looking forward to seeing the results when you finally get it. Always fancied something like that myself but living in Scotland with so many cloudy days/nights it would be a waste of time :sorrow:
 

BF Hammer

Senior Member
Congratulations, it looks like a beautiful telescope!

I personally have been resisting the urge to buy a telescope, but I do keep researching the subject. I have purchased a go-to telescope mount for my conventional D750 and 150-600mm lens setup.

The general advice I keep running across from experienced astrophotographers is for a beginner to buy a refractor-type telescope (glass lenses, no mirror) as the Newtonian (reflector type) telescopes need an experienced user. The mirror will lose collimation sometimes as often as each use and need the extra step of at least testing that. How-to article here. Refractors work well for deep-sky targets like nebulae and galaxies. Planets often are better targets for the Newtonian type. And the alt-azimuth mount with that scope is actually not suited for photography beyond short exposures like used for planets. Longer exposures need an equatorial mount that maintains the rotational angle of the target.

So I keep researching, and I realize there is no 1-telescope path to follow longer-term. I see the dollar signs if I follow that path and I don't take the plunge. :)
 

STM

Senior Member
Congratulations, it looks like a beautiful telescope!

I personally have been resisting the urge to buy a telescope, but I do keep researching the subject. I have purchased a go-to telescope mount for my conventional D750 and 150-600mm lens setup.

The general advice I keep running across from experienced astrophotographers is for a beginner to buy a refractor-type telescope (glass lenses, no mirror) as the Newtonian (reflector type) telescopes need an experienced user. The mirror will lose collimation sometimes as often as each use and need the extra step of at least testing that. How-to article here. Refractors work well for deep-sky targets like nebulae and galaxies. Planets often are better targets for the Newtonian type. And the alt-azimuth mount with that scope is actually not suited for photography beyond short exposures like used for planets. Longer exposures need an equatorial mount that maintains the rotational angle of the target.

So I keep researching, and I realize there is no 1-telescope path to follow longer-term. I see the dollar signs if I follow that path and I don't take the plunge. :)


You are not kidding about dollar signs. As expensive as regular photography can be, astrophotography, pun intended, is out of this world expensive. Some narrow band filters alone are as high as $400. I will probably eventually get a german equitorial mount but the "cheap seats" is about $800 and you can easily spend 3 times that.
 

BF Hammer

Senior Member
Since I already own a portable goto telescope mount and have modified it for equatorial mode, I have been looking more to the small refractor telescopes. I got caught up in the promotional hype for the Radian Raptor 61 for a while, then found out it is a repackaged version of the Sharpstar 61 with a bunch of astrophotography goodies added in. But for the extra $350, you can assemble a Sharpstar-based telescope solution with no unneeded hardware and still be in for considerably cheaper. It is about 300mm lens range equivalent, but not many nebula and galaxy targets need more than that. Insufficient for planetary photos. I'll keep considering more, and see if I feel an itch in my pants pocket after taxes are filed.

Sharpstar61mmTripletAPORefractorTelescope1_2000x.jpg
 
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