I’ve got about $3,000 to spend; what specific telescopes, tripods, tracking mechanisms are good? I’ve got cameras. Any tips or techniques are also welcome.
Put most of your money into a good equatorial mount for whatever 'scope you choose.
I’ve been trying to do it with a Celestron 102mm refractor. The length of the tube increases the instability.
Good information here.
I’ve been thinking of getting a 12" Lightbridge. It breaks down small enough to fit in the car, it’s relatively easy to set up, it’s a great value for a 12" scope, and it’s big. Yes, I’ve got aperature fever.
If I go this way I’ll have to convert the standard manual Dobsonian mount to star tracking. There are several kits on the market but I don’t know much about them yet.
For a camera I’m considering Meade’s Deep Sky Imager CCD with integrated color filters. I know the photonistas sneer at it, but I’m just not prepared to cough up $8K for a flippin camera. I’ll probably start with a good DSLR with an adapter.
For casual viewing I will run the camera into a laptop on a TV tray. Then several people can view at once without getting a crick in the neck. Set it to take a picture every 10 seconds and fire up the blender.
I’m looking at RegiStax and an old version of Photoshop for image processing. RegiStax will align each shot and then stack a bunch using fancy math to bring out more detail. I think it even automatically selects the best frames to use. Then combine LRGB images in Photoshop. If I want to go upscale I’ll spring for the complete Maxim DL package.
If you’ve already got a laptop, the rest of it should squeak under your $3K budget including a couple of eyepeices & adapters. Let me know how it works out so I can live vicariously through your bankroll.