Noobs

Let's get real, everyone was a noob before becoming an expert. And I think I'll consider myself always a noob.

But here are my feelings as someone who just got started and found which are the greatest difficulties.

First question you want to ask is. What do I want to do?
- Visual astronomy? Buy a dobsonian. Really, buy a dobsonian. Really, really! Buy a Dobsonian!
- Good photos? Equatorial mount, DLSR, any average scope, and you'll be blown away.
- Extremely fantastic, wonderful, superlative photos? Win the lottery 1st!
- Science Astronomy? Well, rethink you life, your lifestyle, your family, your friends, your alcohol monthly quota, your all other hobbies, your car, your vacations, and sometimes even your job! This is a dangerous road, my friends.
- All the above at the same time? Find some clones...

I'll cover the science perspective here

When I began this process, the most daunting task ahead of me was of course choosing the equipment. Among many opinions and stories I kept some ideas. Trying to find the setup that will let you start without stopping somewhere in the middle of the learning process because your equipment "can't do that", is not easy. Anything below or above, is just wasted money. Some say you'll need at least around 5K USD / € to reach this level. I've done it with much much less. Around 1600€. Of course I can't do as much as a 5K setup, but already I can do ALOT of science! Believe me!

Nevertheless, is still lot of money to try a new hobby. My advice is, buy a pair of binoculars, go to an astronomy club meetings, and study for a year. If by then you still want to do science, then do buy your equipment! Next step is, visual our CCD?
These days, most science is done with CCD, although you can still do hard science visually. Let's get real, in the XVI century there were no CCDs.


Equipment:

1 - "Buy the best mount you can afford". Mike Simonsen from AAVSO, wrote to me once. And beleive me, it makes complete sense. If you buy a good mount, you'll keep it for decades. Scopes and cameras, most certain will be changed several times along the years to come. (900€)
2 - Buy a good guide cam. A guide cam is very important in many areas of astronomy where the error margin has to be very low, and/or you need to take long exposures >300sec.(500€). And guess what, if you keep your exposures under 30/60sec (depending on focal length) you can reach many fields of astronomy.
3 - Buy any kind of scope. A small refractor (400mmFL) is good enough to start (80€). All scopes work just fine. It all depends on your goals.
4 - Extras: Depending on your goals, you might have to buy for example science filter for photometry. (120€ for a V filter)

Now I have a excellent setup to learn and practice, and it's my future guide-scope! More then enough for hours and hours of science and to try most areas of astronomy, but not all of them, of course. But, do I need to throw away my equipment when upgrading? No, not at all! You just need to buy more (expensive) stuff, that wouldn't work anyway, without the camera and the scope you now have. The almost perfect cam + scope you'll ever need, to guide your late 5 digits cams and scope!

Software:
As important as the equipment it's the software. Don't skip on this. The good news? You can get all for free! What you'll need:
1- Planetarium. Try Stellarium, amazing! (free)
2- Camera control. All cameras bring software to control it (free)
3- Image processing. Try Iris (free)

Are there better programs? Of course! Do you need them? Probably not!

Automation:
There are many options out there, and you get what you pay.. of course! This is a path you will eventually travel. Staying up all night is not an option for most of us.

Operations:
1. Don't underestimate the power of the finder-scope!