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Fantastic and a spend way past my capacity.
You'll still have to spend ages on learning systems and setup so good luck.
I'd have got a cheaper imaging scope and then a second more appropriate scope for planetary viewing.
If you are looking at mono cameras have you considered your filters (true colour, false colour. What about filter wheels, manual or automatic. Electronic focussers.
You've planned an awful lot so far I'd pick a target with a single set of equipment and spend the first few months learning how to image that. Otherwise you are trying to learn multiple workflows at once with lots of new bits of equipment
Grumpy_Git
@Velocio
When I was a little kid, I looked up at the skies and loved how small I felt and how wondrous the universe is, but TBH I lived in West London and London's sodium glow reached me there and I couldn't see that many stars.
When I was older I tried to see the Northern Lights in Iceland, and failed, and I tried camping more towards Winter, but cloud cover took care of that.
A decade ago I got really close to buying a telescope, but I didn't have a car at the time and I lived in a high-rise flat, it would've needed to be small enough to carry on a bicycle so that I could ride out on a dark night, scope and bivvy bag... that didn't happen, the compromises too obvious (a scope so small that it can be carried by bike is not much better than a great pair of binoculars).
But I've the money, car, and inclination to finally buy all the things. I've time at night to do this, I'm happy nerding out on the software post-processing, and to refine a workflow... so I'm going to buy myself a scope.
I'll schedule some time off around a new moon, will go camping in mid-Wales or Scotland, and I'm going to go look at some stars. Though it will be more than that, I've identified places North of London that I can drive to, stargazer car parks and meeting points, so I can track the cloud conditions over Winter and will leave the scope in a ready state that I can put it into the car and just go when the conditions are good.
Of course, this being me means I'll buy something ridiculously nice against all advice that a first telescope should be cheap. Time is what I feel, time passes, and I want to maximise my joy when I have time. Time is scarce for another reason, this is England, and the cloud cover is real. So for the time and opportunity I have, I am aiming for maximum joy or maximum chance of capturing great pics.
And just to make things really expensive, I want the whole thing to weigh under 15kg and to fit into 2 bags/cases, so that it is possible to consider travelling with it, not around the UK as that's easy already, but for the times I go to the USA or Canada, the times I'm in Scandinavia... a good scope that is highly capable and yet small and cheap enough to travel with?
What I want is mostly wide field and deep space imaging/photography, but with some visual planetary capability on the occasion that I want to enjoy the sky without staying up all night.
And that... is one hell of a shopping list.
Initially started with looking at a RedCat paired with a ZWO AM3, but it's a lot of money for high portability without really bringing the quality, and the planetary visual is third class at best.
This being me, I've "settled" on "highest quality with most appeal to a secondary market" and this ends up being a Takahashi FSQ-85EDX paired with a ZWO AM5 mount, and I'll include the ZWO ASiair and camera just to make this all work.
The spend here is roughly 50% on the scope and 50% on the mount (factoring in the tripod, guide computer, and power for that into the mount part).
Another 50% disappears into the adapters, coupling, eyepieces, and camera, and I think I've found a hobby more expensive than cycling!
No idea when it will all arrive, because I haven't ordered it yet... the research to get this far has taken weeks as evidenced by the incredible spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kMhttidtu3FQILAXbFg6pt0xUWzmBMl0ZDb28ZXyDQs/edit?usp=sharing and the system chart for the scope https://takahashi-europe.com/assets/uploads/SYSTEM-CHARTS/EN/FSQ85EDX_system_chart_2023.pdf which initially looked like the imagination of a crazed person but now seems to be an extremely helpful chart.
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