I am a professional photographer and have owned a 10 inch reflector with an EQ mount (Equitorial Mount). This reverses the earths rotation so you can track any celestial object all night once the system is set up right. Orion Telescopes today have upgraded this mount to an EQG and EQG2 which are computerized to show over 30,000 objects and they will automatically move the telescope to the object that you have chosen. They have several star shooter cameras specially designed for the ameteur market with processing software to give the stunning colors that you get from NASA from a land based telescope. There will be atmospohereic distortions and other problems. They also sell a star tracker that will lock in on 1 star so the telescope will track that star for sharp celestial object photography.
Ther are reflector telescopes, refractor telescopes and Cassigrain Telescopes. Cassigrain are the shortest and have a center mirror and a back mirror. The light passes through the main lens,to the back mirror, passes through the lenses a second time to the front mirror and then passes through the lenses a third time to the eye piece or camera.
If you want to do Astral Photography that is stunning in landscape photography you need a celestial map to show where the milky way will be appearing in the sky and when to go to different locations. You need a wide angle lens to prevent the blur of the earths movement and exposures no longer than 30 seconds. You have a choice in this type of photography to have earth objects sharp and the stars slightly blurred due to the earth's rotation or eart blurred and stars sharp.
You can spend all types of money on this hobby and it depends on what you want to do with it. I have seen the star shooter from Orion for around $500.00. I strongly suggest an equitorial mount and a star tracker for the system.
