Nice entry article JT. Here are some suggestions that might be useful to mention without making the article too long:
For wide field:
Mention some limitations - a good barndoor or star tracker will max out at about 300 mm
FL.
You might mention MW time lapses, something simple that can yield spectacular videos, only a tripod and sensitive camera with remote timer needed.
For planetary:
You don't need an accurate mount, just a mount good enough to not lose the target from the
FOV.
I thought that for planetary the frame rate should be up from 100 Hz, not down from 60 Hz. Read for instance the comments in this thread,
https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/5150 ... ?p=6847914 according to which 60 fps is pretty bad.
In this regard, DSLRs are pretty useless because they can't keep up. I have a ELPH 100HS that can run at 120 Hz at 640x480, it worked for Saturn (used afocally at full optical zoom) but not for Jupiter as I could not suppress the flood of light with the cheap camera.
That Saturn image is pretty good, nice shot! Maybe that's the proof that 60 fps works (but maybe at 254 fps you could capture the hexagon?)
For
AP of
DSOs:
In general, you pay for quality. It is perfectly reasonable to start out with an advanced kit rather than starting out simple and replacing gear until you get the quality you want - that might cost a lot more. IMHO you cannot equate a beginner setup with entry-level equipment. Some beginners buy advanced equipment and save a lot of money that way if they make the right choices. Doing it right the first time can pay off.
Don't mention a capacity upper limit for the mount, the more the better.
You might mention something about encoders. Absolute/relative, high res on axes vs low res on DC motors. This explains the price difference between low end and high end gear.
An
OAG is not just an arbitrary alternative, it fixes flexure problems. What you see is what you get.
Mention that with mono imaging you can work with achromatic refractors instead of expensive APOs.
Talk about the improved quality of mono vs color (it's a pretty significant difference in my experience, resolution wise).
IMHO a laptop by the scope is far from ideal. It is so much more productive to use a small, lightweight, low power PC or RPi that handles the data acquisition (and polar alignment, autofocusing, observatory, scheduling, autoguiding and plate solving) and can be remotely logged into as if you were sitting behind the laptop. It saves setup time and hopping around the laptop. An RPi4B costs about $120 or so, a RPi3 costs less, so it fits in entry level kits. We live in a very fortunate time for such advanced controls in a small cheap package.
Mention plate solving, and what type of camera and computer equipment are needed to support this. Plate solving can facilitate polar alignment and
goto alignment considerably. If you look at the
AP threads, many beginners jump right at computer controlled polar alignment and
goto alignment, so this is appropriate to mention for entry level gear.
Mention one essential difference between astro cameras and DSLRs: While you can use DSLRs with minimal computer equipment (none if autoguiding is not used), an astro cam requires the use of a computer with USB3 ports for the video. This ups the ante quite a bit, equipment wise. But you can do quite a lot with just a
DSLR and remote timer, using a mount with some smarts like an AVX.