So before spending thousands of $'s only to discover astrophotography is not my thing, I bought a used Celestron Nightscape. I know it's not a favorite of serious astrophotgaphers but I figured I could play around and see if this is fun enough to keep my interest. I have had a telescope of one kind or another since I was 8 (I'm 61) and currently have a Meade 8" LX200 GPS (which is what the camera is mounted on) and a 12" dob.
The idea was I could take pictures of objects with the LX while wandering around the sky visually with the Dob.
Attached is a quick and dirty first attempt using an easy target (M42). Final product was from 12 x 15 sec frames stacked and processed using the AFX software. The only thing I don't really like is that there is no true live mode and so focussing is a bit of a protracted exercise.
Based on this I am encouraged that this could be fun - also clear that you can "see" more than you can with the naked eye.
Not looking for critique, as I said this was a quick and dirty.
