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I am interested in #astrophotography but my current equipment is quite limited; I have my dad's Canon EOS 5D Mark III (which is defintively a good camera) with a 135mm camera lens as well as a 90/1000 Omegon achromatic refractor telescope on a quite flimsy equatorial mount without goto or automated tracking.
I am considering getting a better telescope but I have no idea where to start. Are there some telescopes you can recommend I won't have to spend a fortune on?
@jdlbt@techhub.social@greatgodoffire 135mm is a good focal length to get started in AP. It is more forgiving and allows you to do reasonably long exposures without autoguiding. If your current EQ mount can track on the RA axis, I'd recommend you give this a try before buying anything.
In AP, a good goto mount is probably the most important piece of gear to buy. With focal lengths ~200mm and above, autoguiding is required to get long sub-exposures without star trailing, and a goto mount is required for autoguiding. It also allows dithering (move the framing just a little bit between exposures) which helps significantly reduce fixed pattern noise from the camera sensor.
Once you have a good mount, you can consider APO scopes in the 250-400mm focal length range like the WO Redcat 51 or the Askar FRA400 (I have the FRA400 and it is AMAZING).
@greatgodoffire
An alternative to the goto mount is a star tracker like the skywatcher star adventurer. This would work with your camera and lens but it doesn't have the capacity to carry a heavier scope. This can be a short term solution but it is one that will limit your ability to go beyond the camera/lens combo so you should consider whether you should save the money for better mount.
@jdlbt I started with astrophotography about a year ago with the 135mm lens and made ~150 pictures of the Orion Nebula which I stacked in Siril. The reason I want to use a telescope is that with my current setup the Orion Nebula is only around 300x300 pixels.
The scopes you suggest are quite expensive, wouldn't just buying a telescope with goto and autoguiding yield bigger and better pictures? Especially Maksutov telescopes seem cheap and have a large focal length and aperture.
@greatgodoffire @jdlbt I think you are mixing "autoguiding" with "tracking". Tracking is the basic "turns with the Earth's rotation" that any electronic mount can do. "Autoguiding" is precision tracking at a arcsecond/few pixel level to account for mount imperfections. No £600 mount+scope will do that. At best you'll be able to take 15s images before they trail. With the high F-ratio of a Mak, that's not much light.
@greatgodoffire As @jdlbt recommends, for #astrophotography it would be better to get a camera tracker and learn the craft first. 1000mm is not a beginner-level friendly focal length, for sure.