best telescope for astrophotography under $1000

You really should also invest in a guide scope, autoguider, and a quality laptop to control your whole setup with the former two are things we’ll cover in this review along with the big three components.Ģ: Astrophotography isn’t necessarily all about larger aperture the way visual astronomy is Not so with astrophotography.ĭeep-sky astrophotography, at a minimum, requires a telescope optical tube assembly (the part that actually gathers and focuses light), a precise computerized equatorial mount, and, of course, a camera. When shopping for an entry-level telescope for visual astronomy (i.e., looking through the eyepiece), you are generally buying a single product, which means you can at least get by with no additional purchases beside maybe a couple of eyepieces.

Deep-sky astrophotography is different from visual astronomy in a number of ways. Our Picks for the Best Astrophotography Telescopesīefore going deep into our telescope recommendations, let’s discuss some of the basics of deep-sky astrophotography. Take a look and see which one you’d like to be your personal companion as you discover and map the wonders of the universe. If you don’t want to read the whole guide, below is a list of the five best telescopes for astrophotography. If you want to just shoot the Moon and planets, we recommend reading our Best Planetary Telescopes article and connecting a CMOS planetary imaging camera to whatever you buy-that’s all you need. Planetary photography requires different considerations. When I talk about astrophotography, I am referring to photographing deep sky objects (DSO’s)-namely galaxies and nebula. In this article, we’ll mostly be covering deep-sky astrophotography, which is what the vast majority of amateurs are interested in. It requires a lot of work to get good results for anything other than wide shots of the Moon and maybe the planets, and it’s an entirely different beast than visual observing.

Astrophotography is an extremely dedicated hobby, one that requires significant financial and time investment to do right.

Best telescope for astrophotography under $1000