Beginner Set Up - Chime in!

[vickiesaurus]

Building my first set up as a beginner - chime in with some advice!
I have just moved from the UK and currently based in Brunei. I will be visiting Singapore/ KL fairly frequently so looking for more local insight.

So after a year and abit of lots of travelling, hiking to really dark places and setting up the telescope my partner bought for my birthday, I was absolutely in love with the night sky. I then borrowed a Canon DSLR from my sibling and then dabbed around with widefield astrophotography, and managed a few successful shots of the Milky Way. I practiced stacking and post processing on DSS and Photoshop, and really enjoyed the whole learning process, which then prompted me to dive in and research on building a set up with a star tracker to allow me to do longer exposures.

This is what I'm currently considering that's within my budget.

Mount: Skywatcher Star Adventurer GTi OR ZWO-AM5. I know it's quite a hike in price different but the lack of counterweights with the AM5 really appeal to me. I have also read that it pairs really well with the ASIair.

Telescope to attach to the DSLR: The popular one seems to be the William Optics Redcat 51, however quite price and only available in the UK as far am I am aware. Any suggestions on what'd be a good substitute/ equivalent to that would be great. KL stocks Sharpstar 61, which is what I'm considering, but any other suggestions welcome.

Polar alignment: ZWO ASIair plus. This would also serve to help with focusing, mount control aid, and overall aid in the learning process.

Other accessories: Bahtinov Mask for focusing and dew heater.

What do you all think? Any suggestions are welcome, please keep it friendly as I'm fairly new!

I'll be looking at getting what I can secondhand, I'll also try the buy/sell forum on this page. Any other suggestions where I can get these locally would be great, as I'll be visiting SG this week over Christmas!

[Meng Lee]

Hi,

ZWO-AM3 would be slightly cheaper if your setup is not that heavy.

You would need a guidescope and camera for guiding.

Taking pictures under our light polluted skies would need at least a broadband filter such as Optolong L-Pro otherwise exposures will get washed out even with short exposures.

Meng Lee

[perchloratepenguin]

Hi,

You might be able to purchase the WO Redcat 51 from Robin. Here's the link to his post!

viewtopic.php?p=130847&hilit=redcat+51#p130847