To do astrophotography you need a good stable mount a good telescope and a good camera in that order. Followed by a good laptop and good software, power supplies and a host of other bits like a guide scope and a guiding camera.

Your budget should be $6-7000 as a minimum, about 2,000 for the mount (a motorized equatorial) 1,000 for the telescope (say an 80mm Apo) 2,000 for a CCD camera, 500 for a guide scope, 250 for a guider, and another 1000 for all the other gizmos you need.

You wont be happy with either of those scopes.

I think you should stick to visual observing before you take on astrophotography.

great for astrophotography if you have the adapter, but you probably already knew that. it stays aligned very well, and is easy to align in my opinion. it has a guide catologing over 4,000 celestrial objects including galaxies, planets, nebulas, and other deep space objects. its a great telescope, and a lot better than binoculars. you can easily see jupiter’s jet streams… saturn’s rings in detail… the andromeda galaxy… and very nice nebulas without having to google how to find them. simply input your city, state, time, date, and align it 1 of 3 possible ways, and your set! its really not that hard to do.

the reason why a lot of the meade telescopes don’t work is because they have that flawed short tube design which makes it hard to see deep sky objects. this telescope has a nice long body, and is extreamily easy to control. it has auto align like i said, and will even send you on a guided tour of the cosmos with celestrial objects that are in best visibility given the date, and your location.

i got it from telescopes.com. it came with 2 free software programs- one was made by celestron that was great as a companion when your out in the field doing astronomy. it showed the positions of planets, their orbits, and also showed pictures of galaxies and their positions so if you choose not to use the auto align, that software will point you in the right direction.

the other program was one where you could control you telescope from your computer. i use that on cold nights. i have a long chord (no chords for this are included but you can get one for only 25 bucks) and run it through my open window, and sit inside… turn the tv on, have a nice cup of tea, all while sitting on the couch and controlling my telescope. i also have a wireless web cam attached to it so i get the live view fed into my computer. if you just have the cable, you would still have to look through your telescope to get the view… the program only controlls it.

assembly is very straight forward. i had it hooked up and ready to go in less than 10 minutes. i am extreamily impressed, and satisified with this telescope.