Diving into astrophotography. Pointers?

[waday]

My advice is to ask @jsecordphoto for advice.

(His shots are AMAZING! No offense Astro, I like yours, too! )

that depends on what type of photos you are looking to make. These days, when a lot of people talk about astrophotography, they mean landscape astrophotography like I do. True astrophotography is more of deep sky stuff- which I know very little about

Good point. I made that assumption.

 

[astroNikon]

OP is intersted in Landscape, which I know jsecord is much better at. He goes to dark sky locations too to do it. I'm kinda stuck in my backyard most of the time but use my 12inch telescope for deep sky stuff. Doing landscape shots do not work at my location with the nice brandnew street light giving me a 20% shadow at 2am.

On another note. Aperture makes a big difference.

FYI, I'll post them when I get a chance but I was fiddling around with my camera the other night. I took shots of a nebula
using the Tamron 150-600 @ f/5 @ 150mm
result ==> you could not see any colors, just dots.

using Nikon 50mm/1.4 @ 1.4
result ==> you could see a nice blue blob of the nebula, even though 1/3 the FOV of the tamron

using a telescope with a 12in aperture, 2,000mm
result => you can see multiple colors and a gigantic nebula

essentially, in deep space astrophotography you need to capture light. The larger the light gathering ability you have the better the outcome. Tracking helps too.

where as with the moon you just need the reach, the rest isn't as important to get the IQ as long as you shutter speed is fast enough, and the sky is clear. I use binoculars and check the ridges in - i think - it's the Sea of Tranquility upper right segment. If I can't see the ridges I know there's stuff in the way that you can't see which affects the IQ

here's one of my old nebulae shots with a 12 inch telescope essentially close to SOOC. None of my camera lenses can anything close to that to to light noise entering the picture fairly quickly.
20140923-01 Orion Nebula by Steve Sklar, on Flickr

 

[KmH]

For doing long exposure AP the mount is the #1 concern, aperture (a telescope or a DSLR lens) is the 2nd consideration.

If you want to do long exposure with just a DSLR and lens a good mount that can counter the earth's rotation is going to cost $300 used to $600 or so new.

Here is an example of a good DSLR mount - SkyGuider Camera Mount with guideport
For a first medium aperture telescope for doing AP this mount/tripod is often recommended - SkyGuider Camera Mount with guideport
The ZEQ25 has a rated weight capacity of 27 lbs.
You would not want a telescope, finder scope, auto guider, and other accessories that exceed about 60% of the rated weight capacity, or a total weight all up of no more than 16 lbs.

I want this telescope that weighs 18.5 lbs (without accessories), so I will need a mount like this one that has a 44 lb capacity.