Here is a nice mount for those wanting to do Astrophotography without a telescope. The problem with using long exposures without a tracking mount is that the ob

Here is a nice mount for those wanting to do Astrophotography without a telescope. The problem with using long exposures without a tracking mount is that the objects being photographed is always in motion wrt. to where you originally pointed the camera and you end up with star trails. This may not be a problem if you are using wide angle lenses to photograph a large chunk of the night sky. http://www.ioptron.com/product-p/3302b.htm http://www.ioptron.com/product-p/3302b.htm One of the most useful things that I did when I started out in this hobby was get a login to 'AstroMart' and bought used equipment. Amateur Astronomy is like buying Gym equipment. Everybody wants to do it and will buy fancy equipment but most will not use much of that (myself included). So you end up with a lot of very good used equipment available for sale. It can also be a very very expensive hobby, hence reselling some of your equipment to feed your habit is a common event. Astromart is a sort of self regulated auction site for used astronomy equipment. I personally bought a 10 year old telescope 12 years ago which I can still resell today at the price I bought it then. The most useful advice I see on here is to get something that you will actually take out and use. Binoculars (7x50 or 10x50) or a good small apochromatic refractor (80 mm or less) with a decent alt-azimuth mount. Learning the common constellations, locating the north star (if you are in the northern hemisphere) etc. The following site will give you the list of dark sky locations in California. http://www.observingsites.com/ds_ca.htm http://www.observingsites.com/ds_ca.htm For those in the Bay Area, Henry Coe State park near Morgan Hill/Gilroy is an excellent dark sky site. I saw the Milky Way again in all its majestic glory after 30 years here. Camp out there for a night and you can have a great time stargazing. Just try and find a cloudless, moonless night for best experience. Learn to read the Clear Sky chart for each location and plan out your trip. Its a fun but addictive and expensive hobby. So beware.