What has been your worst astrophotography investment?

I don't consider any of this stuff an 'investment' and I never expect to get my money back out.   They are tools.  So the question for me is does the tool perform appropriately to justify the price.

I have to say that so far I don't have anything that was really so off target that I thought it was 'bad'.    The tracking on my old ETX125 was never as good as Meade led me to believe it would be, but, that was also 22 years ago.   Since that optical tube isn't totally trash, I converted it on to a dovetail mount and still use it occasionally.

Recently the worst things I've bought were all relatively inexpensive, like the Bahtinov masks from Amazon that are as fragile as a wine glass and last just about as long in the field as a wine glass… Thank heaven for auto-focus!

I find this topic quite intriguing, and similar to Kurt, I rarely ponder about the return aspect. Eventually, there comes a point where I let go of something I've purchased. I've found that selling on Cloudy Nights usually works well for me. It's gratifying to assist someone who wants or needs the item I have, and it's wonderful that they can get a great deal while I help out a fellow astronomer. However, I must admit that I've been disappointed by some of the professional 'buyback' programs. Their offers can be downright insulting, which I believe does them a disservice. So, not so much a piece of equipment, but more the experience that goes around the changes in my needs.

The Celeston Nextstar one arm alt/AZ mount. They should take it off the market. The wedge for it is a close second.

Peter

@Chris White- Overcast Observatory Explain what you mean

I agree….my cameras are QHY, great service, although they also go out sometimes, and Starlight Xpress. SBIG also is VG.

Peter

I won't say the brand but I have recently spent over $4300 on an OTA that went back 3 times to the manufacturer in 4 months, luckily it was in warranty and I was able to get a refund. 
I NEVER buy anything with the intent of it being an investment. Its like a car if you buy new. You loose a ton once you sign the papers.
I think the only exception to the rule is AP. There scopes are really an investment and while there mounts I wouldn't consider them an investment, I'd say they hold there value more so than other mounts on the market. I think Planewave is in that category as well.

Dale

Check out  what Stelios here has done with that scope.

I buy everything (almost) used so it’s already lost a good chunk of value. But when I was first starting and knew nothing, I bought a CLS filter that was meant for visual. It didn’t have an IR cutoff and was awful. I used it once and haven’t touched it since. I think I could likely sell everything else at a reasonable depreciation vs the fun I’ve had. Maybe my QHY294m would be hard to sell. I love that camera but it’s not a fan favorite. I likely couldn’t give away my SVBony SV-105 guide camera but it’s a $50 hidden gem. It’s been guiding one of my mounts for almost a year and works like a charm. My SSAG is likely almost worthless too but I bought it for peanuts.

Quality astro equipment is a good investment. I  have been upgrading for years and never lost much on anything. I made profit on some items, including a Planewave CDK 12.5 which sold in 2 hours. I am getting an A&O Optical 14.5.

Peter

I also had a bad blue in that set. The QHY 294M is not a bad camera. The amp glow calibrated out.

Some people did not agree with the word "investment."   I thought an investment doesn't necessarily have to have financial returns.  It can have returns in the form of joy, time saving, achievement, etc.  So viewing equipment purchased for astrophotography as investments is fine.  Of course, I may be wrong, since I am not a native English speaker.  Maybe the word "investment" in English is strictly for something that has financial returns.  Is it?

My worst investment in astrophotography is a cooled CCD camera that contains a KAF16803 sensor.  It was purchased about 10 years ago.  Those who know about this sensor knows how much it costed, especially from a camera manufacture whose name does not start with Q nor with Z.  Before the purchase, I used DSLRs for my imaging, and I thought the cooled camera will bring significant boost in image quality.  It turns out not the case. The read noise of the CCD is about 5 times worse than mainstream DSLRs at that time (make it 10 times if compared against today's DSLRs).  This made imaging in Ha, R, G, and B extremely time consuming. One has to use very long subs to beat down the read noise. Very long subs are fine for extremely deep imaging, but this is not what I often do in mobile imaging. So I end up with only using this camera for L if I want to go very deep and if the target is a continuum one (like galaxy, or dust reflection).  In such cases, I use DSLRs to get RGB to go with the L from the mono CCD. For emission line objects and intermediate-depth imaging, I use DSLRs throughout.

In this 10-year period, probably less than 5% of my photons were collected with this CCD camera. The other 95% were still through DSLRs.  Last year I put this CCD camera on a large-aperture remote telescope, and I thought finally I found a good place for this camera.  It served us well for about a year.  Now it's replaced by a new cooled CMOS camera.

If I can go back in time, I will do everything I can to stop myself from getting this camera.

Wei-Hao Wang:
Some people did not agree with the word "investment."   I thought an investment doesn't necessarily have to have financial returns.  It can have returns in the form of joy, time saving, achievement, etc.  So viewing equipment purchased for astrophotography as investments is fine.  Of course, I may be wrong, since I am not a native English speaker.  Maybe the word "investment" in English is strictly for something that has financial returns.  Is it?

My worst investment in astrophotography is a cooled CCD camera that contains a KAF16803 sensor.  It was purchased about 10 years ago.  Those who know about this sensor knows how much it costed, especially from a camera manufacture whose name does not start with Q nor with Z.  Before the purchase, I used DSLRs for my imaging, and I thought the cooled camera will bring significant boost in image quality.  It turns out not the case. The read noise of the CCD is about 5 times worse than mainstream DSLRs at that time (make it 10 times if compared against today's DSLRs).  This made imaging in Ha, R, G, and B extremely time consuming. One has to use very long subs to beat down the read noise. Very long subs are fine for extremely deep imaging, but this is not what I often do in mobile imaging. So I end up with only using this camera for L if I want to go very deep and if the target is a continuum one (like galaxy, or dust reflection).  In such cases, I use DSLRs to get RGB to go with the L from the mono CCD. For emission line objects and intermediate-depth imaging, I use DSLRs throughout.

In this 10-year period, probably less than 5% of my photons were collected with this CCD camera. The other 95% were still through DSLRs.  Last year I put this CCD camera on a large-aperture remote telescope, and I thought finally I found a good place for this camera.  It served us well for about a year.  Now it's replaced by a new cooled CMOS camera.

If I can go back in time, I will do everything I can to stop myself from getting this camera.

That is what I meant by "investment" and maybe it's the wrong word.  I have never made a profit on any astro equipment and never intended to do so. 

Sorry to hear about your CCD.  I really feel for those who bought CCDs at a high price and now have to price them to compete with much cheaper CMOS cameras.  Not sure if this is what happened with your CCD, but I see for example QSI cameras that cost over $4k selling for $1,500 or less sometimes.  Ouch.