I am new to astrophotography but want to learn about it and get started. I just bought Dalia and Antoine's book "The Messier Catalog Workbook" and am enjoying this content, I highly recommend it. Great work on that, Dalia and Antonine! Not knowing much at this point but planning ahead to when I start buying equipment, I am wondering about how easy or difficult it is to locate deep-sky objects in a telescope. I understand that some scopes are equipped with a "go-to" target-finding system (or it can be added, I guess) which allows you to enter the coordinates of the target and the mount moves to that location automatically. But I would like to know how difficult it is to find targets when using a telescope without this technology?
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Agreed, a go to mount is a must. I have four different go-to mounts, like one wasn't enough. I even bought a dobsonian that's true to it's name Obsession 12.5". It has the electronic push to system on it as well.
I kind of skipped the learning stages with the keypads, although I have and can use them. I went straight to plate solving. This is done with software that looks at an image taken by your camera then looks through files finding a match.
I might have paid, and some nights still paying, the cost for short cutting because I struggle with some of the inter software communications. It is very accurate though. I had great luck with NGC7635 and M101. These aren't too tough of a target but the plate solving centers it perfectly.
You might make note of it that the longer focal length the tougher the target becomes. I started with 890mm. I have one scope at over 2200mm and it's tough to get where you want to be. Even the three star alignment thing isn't easy. I live in a Bortles 3 zone and on a good dark night there's a lot of stars out there. Then when you look through a 2200mm scope you realize you're not see hardly anything! Look deep into the Milky Way sometime and wow it's easy to get lost by star hopping.
Like everything practice, practice, practice.