Star Gazing

Rather curious as I`ve never tried Astro with a DSLR. Thinking about buying a telescope and sticking a K5 on it. Would welcome any ideas, I don`t want to spend much but would like to try it out. Would I be better off with the GPS unit and say a 500 F8 mirror lens and 2 times converter?

do you have any ideas as to what you hope to capture?

the GPS unit is a very funky idea and my understanding is that it works well for wide angle lenses, but it's limited by the range of motion of the SR system so it probably isn't much use with lenses of that magnitude.

so basically it's great for general starscapes and milky way shots but probably not that much use for planets and distant deep sky objects.

Saying that, it's amazing how big some of these things are, my best ever astro shot is one of the Andromeda galaxy, taken with a 300mm lens on a driven mounting.

if you want to try the planets, you're (in my experience) better off with a webcam mounted in place of the eyepiece on a big telescope, getting a drive set up for multi-minute exposures at 1000+ mm is no easy task

Had to start asking `cos I have no idea where to begin. I chose that particular lens as it`s the largest I have but could quite easily use a 135 or 200 or 300. I just don`t know. I guess I should look for an idiots guide to........

Try this? http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/TOC_AP.HTM

If you want more background in addition to JAK's link have a look at

http://stargazerslounge.com/

this is pretty much the UK's ( + others) best astro forum and there is a section ' Getting Started With Imaging' , where you can find answers or register and ask questions.


Very friendly and helpful forum ( just like here)