best bang for your buck??

[Rrowe]

I am going to finally get a skywatcher EQ6-R. now I am looking to put an imaging scope on it. im looking at all these ed80 scopes as it seems to be a consensus good first imaging scope. I am wondering if anyone knows of a good quality scope for its price point. would it hurt to go a bit bigger like an ed100 as a first imaging scope?

also what would be a good guidescope and guidecamera combination to get, i know of the orion packages but I have been worried that if i by an orion package i would be upgrading to something later down the road. i would rather spend money once and get it right the first time.

I have a Canon T6i not modified and probably not going to as i like taking nightscapes with it. as well as kids sports and general outdoor photography. what would be a good camera to buy. I found a good deal on a ZWO ASI174M i know its mono but i could just take mono pictures to start then buy filters/filterwheel later down the road.

what are your thoughts on my thoughts. thanks guys

[MikeM]

Congrats on the new upcoming mount! As for a decent scope, the Explore Scientific ES80 f/6 triplet is a good bang for the buck scope. It's about $650 and when compared to other triplets in that size, it's about $300-400 cheaper. My guess would be which glass they use, but have seen some decent reviews on the scope. If you want more quality then I would suggest looking at Stellarvue; their 80mm scope is ~$1000.
As for a guidescope/camera the QHY5L-II gets great reviews and is abouot $160. Attach that to a 50-80mm guides cope and you have a good combo.
The ASI cameras also get rave reviews, but I believe that camera is made for planetary/lunar/solar imaging, not for deep sky.

[Rrowe]

Thanks Mike. Since that post i have bought a used Orion ed80T CF.

thanks for the info on the guidescope, ill look that up.

[Craig]

Have a look at the ZWO ASI294MC Pro. Look it up on youtube lots of great reviews.