A couple of weeks back, I did a tutorial about what it takes to really get into deep space astroimaging.
https://youtu.be/1EFZyb37DaE
I will admit it was not about "trying;" astroimaging. It was about what you would need eventually to do competent astroimaging at the beginning, and perhaps advanced level.
Because of this, I omitted the "Trying" tools. Trying tools are things that would allow you to take a picture of a something in the sky (nightscape, star trails, webcams, cell phone on the focuser, smart telescopes) but not get you where you want to be (long exposure imaging of dim, dark sky objects). Trying tools allow you to try out imaging things in the sky. But they are not much help in deep space astroimaging.
This was not to disparage any of those tools. It was to clear the air and establish that to really get into astroimaging you needed to be prepared to spend $5000 (if you had no buddies to borrow from, bought new, and had nothing (not even a laptop computer and a campstool and......) to start with) or a realistic minimum of $2100 or something (if you bought used, borrowed from buddies, had a lot of stuff already, etc.). The single most important purchase was a mount. This was in the $1500-$2000 range in itself (new) and could have been more. By definition, a dob is not in that category. (Yes, you can take wonderful images with a dob, but it is exponentially more difficult.)
You have proposed one of those $80 digital eyepieces........Are they worth it? Depends on what $80 is worth to you. They will do what they say they can do. They will deliver a brighter, larger image to your viewing device (usually a tablet or phone or computer screen). But, unless you can track the target somehow, the target will come into the picture and out of the picture within 30 seconds or so. Therefore, you have to constantly nudge the scope to keep the image in view. On the moon, it will be pretty cool for the first few times you do it. On brighter deep sky objects (M42, others), you will probably get something pretty interesting. Note also that you will need a very good, well aligned finder scope, since you will be doing a lot of work to find the objects. This in itself will limit you to brighter things. Is all this regular deep space astroimaging? I don't think so, but only if I get to use my definition of deep space astroimaging. Others may have different definitions.
The big deal is--------will spending $80 here delay your entry into the kind of astroimaging that we talk about here in this forum. If you got the bucks, then spend the $2000 to $5000 to get into imaging. If not, be careful of spending so much on intermediate steps (a flimsy mount, a camera with a small sensor, a wonky focuser on a telescope) buying "trying" tools, stuff that you will have to unload later to get what you really need.
So----as a tool to show what is in the dob on bright objects (the moon), it will do something. As a tool to get into astroimaging, it won't do much. So, what is $80 worth to you?
Alex
Edited by Alex McConahay, Today, 02:04 PM.