BEGINNER: Best Scope for Deepsky and Planetary imaging

Hi Vince,
one reason why there aren't many comments is - there is not THE best scope.
If you want to image Andromeda, you want to have a sharp scope in the 400 mm range or below (full frame equivalent). 400 … 600 mm is also a nice focal length for other deep-sky objects. However, sonce you want to capture long exposures, you want to have a proper mount, which should lie in the EQ5 range or above.
For the moon hovever, you want something like >1000 mm, but it doesnt have to be fast. For Planets even more focal length. Here you won't take very long exposures, in some cases even below a millisecond. You see, it depends.

One possibility for you would be, to utilize your existing camera equipment, and buy a mobile star tracker, like a star adventurer or something in this class. This is not high quality equipment, but it is very portable, and you will use it, even if you decide to buy a telescope and a heavier mount someday.

CS Hoschie

Hi Vince,
there are also alternatives to the Star Adventurer, from Vixen, Sightron, iOptron (whom i do not recommend because of bad service) or others. I can not give you any pros and cons, but i think doing some comparison would be recommended.

The EOS600 is from my perspective a good DSLR. It is an APS-C camera, but it has a good s/n, and if i'm right the display can be tilted. I had an EOS 1000Da, EOS 5DII, EOS6Da, and now switched to a Sony a7III. The Canon DSLR in my eyes has the disadvantage of bad star reproduction in the ultrawide angle range when shooting wide open (as for polar lights un my use case). 44 mm backfocus but 14 mm focal length - that's a challenge. I also killed my 5DII two times, and now my 6Da is broken, probably because i got some strain onto the USB slot when shooting from a laptop. At the 5DII they had to replace the main board. Expensive.
The Sony E-mount has a shorter backfocus. But you won't get real raw imagery from that camera, it is filtered as soon as exposure time exceeds some seconds. Other brands also have much shorter backfocus lengths in their mirrorless series, i might go for Canon or Nikon in my next life.

So to sum up, the 600D is very good and offers a lot of potential. As long as you're okay without an astro modification, i would stick with it!

CS Horst

Hi Vince.  I agree with CS Horst, your queation is simple but difficult to simply answer. Best for everything or everyone does't exist. 

I suggest you read Chris Woodhouse's book, The Astrophotography Manual, before you purchase anything.  You don't have read the whole book at first. It will be a valuable text as you advance. But the first few chapters will help you understand what equipment is needed and why.

The book is 419 pages, and no few paragraphs here are going to be adequate to fully inform you on what to buy. There are alot of variables to consider.  The imager him/herself being the biggest one. 

Another good book is Charles Bracken's the Deep-Sky Imaging Primer. I think it jumps quickly into more advanced topics, and beginners with little knowledge may get lost and frustrated. 

No book, even though members here may, can tell you to buy X brand of scope and Y mount.  Once you know the type/design that will work best for you,  then you can then decide/research on quality and price.

Lynn K.

Having gone down the Star Adventurer route as a beginner, I would actually recommend getting a proper goto mount. When first starting out I found the Star Adventurer very frustrating and hard to use. Upgrading to a goto mount was a huge jump in ease and effectiveness of my beginning imaging. It is a bit counter intuitive but now after some experience I can make effective use of the star adventurer but not when I was first starting out. I bought a mount that used the SynScan system and found it very easy to setup and use and it even has a usable polar alignment routine. Immediately I went from frustrated and missing targets, spending forever trying to find a target to making images. The mount got out of my way and I was able to quickly start improving. Of course this is just the beginning of the journey but having a mount that isn't working against you can really make or break your initial experience.

Joe Linington:
Having gone down the Star Adventurer route as a beginner, I would actually recommend getting a proper goto mount. When first starting out I found the Star Adventurer very frustrating and hard to use.

Hi Joe, i can understand this argument. Of course, the Star Adventurer ist not a goto mount, and photographing something requires preparation. Deep-sky objects can not be seen through the finder scope, so you need eigher to use coordinates (my Star Adventurer doesnt offer this), or you need to find the constellations, roughly aim by thumb, and then do the final framing via longer exposure high ISO test shots. Since you won't use focal lengths above 135 mm on this mount, it is not that difficult. Vince did the same on a tripod.
But doing this takes time, can indeed be uncomfortable and frustrating.

On the other hand, buying a goto mount would be the alternative. But which one? Will it still be good enough in two or three years? And if - are 1500 - 2000 Euros enough for that? A goto mount with a EOS600 and some lenses would definitively work, but this automatically triggers the next desire: A Telescope, then a camera. Typically it turns out, the mount was too small, etc.



Trying to find the objects "manually" is old school, i admit, but it wont take long and you can really impress the girls, by giving them a sky tour ;)
Moreover, you get some skills that can be helpful when technology fails (which can be time consuming, uncomfortable and frustrating, too).

Hi Joe, i can understand this argument. Of course, the Star Adventurer ist not a goto mount, and photographing something requires preparation. Deep-sky objects can not be seen through the finder scope, so you need eigher to use coordinates (my Star Adventurer doesnt offer this), or you need to find the constellations, roughly aim by thumb, and then do the final framing via longer exposure high ISO test shots. Since you won't use focal lengths above 135 mm on this mount, it is not that difficult. Vince did the same on a tripod.
But doing this takes time, can indeed be uncomfortable and frustrating.

On the other hand, buying a goto mount would be the alternative. But which one? Will it still be good enough in two or three years? And if - are 1500 - 2000 Euros enough for that? A goto mount with a EOS600 and some lenses would definitively work, but this automatically triggers the next desire: A Telescope, then a camera. Typically it turns out, the mount was too small, etc.

Trying to find the objects "manually" is old school, i admit, but it wont take long and you can really impress the girls, by giving them a sky tour ;)
Moreover, you get some skills that can be helpful when technology fails (which can be time consuming, uncomfortable and frustrating, too).

Well, this basically sums up my journey. I bought the Star Adventurer used for about $300 (I'll try to translate everything to USD) I tried it for 3 months managing to get a first on target image in month 3. It was frustrating. Then I found a used SW EQM-35 for about $600 within driving distance and bought that. Yes it has many flaws but after a teardown and rebuild it worked well enough. This was an immediate jump in satisfaction and image quality. Of course exactly as you said, then I bought a 76EDPH, reducer and a few filters. Then an old FF body that I modified. Now we're singing and making progress. But the EQM was not up to handling a bigger scope like a 6" newt. Then I found a crazy deal on a mint used EQ6R-Pro with USB (not super old version) and bought it for about $1600. Now the future buy list has - a cooled astro cam, a bigger scope and yet another filter on it. It doesn't end.

I don't regret my EQM because it's a great light second mount and I play with it for super wide work but had I just listened and bought 1 EQ5 size mount I would have saved enough money to buy a Rising Cam IMX571 Astro Camera.

If you get a Star Adventurer, I recommend getting Nina, ASTAP and Stellarium running on a laptop. You can get a lot out of it with only connecting to the camera. You can use Nina to help align the mount quickly and accurately, and help aim your scope much quicker by plate solving a quick image and then pushing that to stellarium to see exactly where you are. You may even be able to focus the camera this way (not sure I don't have Canon). Then disconnect the laptop and image away old school with an intervalometer. It isn't goto but it's the next best thing and it's free if you have a laptop and USB cable.

My first telescope was (and is) an 8" newt. But I recommend to any beginner astrophotographer a refractor telescope, the best beginner one being the WO Redcat 51 because it has a built-in bahtinov mask for precise focusing, it is a very sharp petzvel design, has a focuser like a camera lens, gives a fully flat field across a full-frame sensor, and it's easier to attach an OSC camera. I guess the only con being it's only 2" in diameter.

The Newtonian is best for smaller diffuse and reflection nebulae, galaxies, planetary nebulae, and little things (including planets).
The Redcat is best for wider field and huge nebulae.


Here is a photo taken with a RedCat 51. Credit: William Yang


And an 8" Newtonian. Credit: jared.bowens77.


Side note: Redcat 51 has a FL of 250mm. A typical newt is 600 to 1000mm (Faster ones can have shorter focal lengths).
The Redcat is usually mounted on a Ioptron Skyguider Pro, but it is better on a full GEM.

Hey guys,
I'm a literally bloody beginner and so far have only used my canon 600d untracked on a tripod. But I was limited very fast so now I want to upgrade my setup. I'm looking for a beginner friendly scope which I can shoot the most common big deep sky targets (andromeda, Orion, pleiades ...)  with but also snap some images of planets and the moon. The focus would be deep sky where the planetary images don't need to be as good as the deep sky ones. I would also need to buy a tracking mount for the scope where I would need input from more advanced astronomers on the best Scope and mount combinations. My budget would be 1500-2000 Euros as this would be a slow approach to test out before I go all in Later. If you need any more info feel free to ask me if I missed something.  Thanks in advance!Vince

Even though I can understand the argument "go for a bigger go-to mount immediately", I would recommend to go for a portable small EQ mount like the Star Adventurer 2i as other have been stated (or equivalnet like iOptron sky guider pro for example). Also as others said ,check for a small refractor telescope that is forgiving to errors and keep it simple. You will get experience that even if you decide to upgrade later to bigger mount/astronomy camera/greater FL will be transferable, like polar allignment, balancing and basic setup techniques.

Mount,Telescope & DSLR ,prefferable without the need of and external guiding hardware like a computer, just to get into the hobby and learn the night sky for yourself. Also if you indeed want to go for a more automated mount, I would recommend a small go-to mount if it is available like the Star Adventurer GTi Wi-Fi GoTo (which needs a smartphone to cooperate but I think it is managable), that gives you best of both worlds. 

Lastly, check :

https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/

You can input object you want to shoot / telescope and camera and see what the finally framing is. Myself I have the RedCat51 that is a popular small scope and definetily was worth all the money I invested (check my AB page)!

Also, there a lot to learn on the processing side also, but inevitable you will get to that