Could you recommend a setup for a total newb? From your comment, it doesn't sound too difficult, but maybe your setup is more complicated than you let on. If you don't mind, of course.
That's a difficult question to answer because it really depends on what you're wanting to do and how much you'd like to spend. There's no one-size-fits-all in the telescope world. I'd recommend asking on the
Cloudy Nights forum, they're super helpful and very friendly to beginners. But I'll go ahead and tell you my thought process when I got started.
So at the time I already had a DSLR, a decent tripod, and a reasonable knowledge of where things are in the night sky. I'd been doing basic astrophotography for a few years but I wanted to experiment with taking better pictures of the moon and planets than my 55-250mm lens would allow.
I picked up a
Celestron C90 which is a good quality and relatively cheap 90mm/3.5" telescope. Well made and good bang for the buck. Add in a T-ring/T-adapter for your brand camera which lets you mount the camera to the back of the telescope. Then it's basically a 1250mm telephoto lens with manual focus and no aperture control. For visual use (ie with your eyes, not the camera) you'd also want a 90 degree diagonal which makes it easier to look through when it's pointed high in the sky.
It doesn't come with a tripod of any kind, but it will sit on the ball head of the camera tripod that I already had. Screws in just like a camera does. Keep in mind it weighs 5lbs (before you even add a camera) so you'll need a pretty solid tripod to handle it. It's a little finicky to aim on a ball head and it'll probably be a little shaky, but if you're patient with it you can get some great photos. It really opened up a whole new world of photography to me.
You can of course spend hundreds and thousands more on computerized imaging gear, but I'd recommend taking it slow. It's easy to spend a lot of money and get overwhelmed by the steep learning curve and never use it again. Start in small steps, get some practice in, and then if you like it you'll have more of an idea of what direction to go in the future.
Hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions.
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Total Lunar Eclipse - Jan 2019
Total Lunar Eclipse & Beehive Cluster - Jan 2019
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