Explainer · Buying Gear · Beginner
Turning Your Telescope Into an Astrophotography Rig
What can you actually capture — phone, DSLR, or a dedicated cooled camera — and what it costs to add tracking and stacking once you're ready to move from observing to photographing.
14 September 2026 · 4 min read
Once you're comfortable finding your way around the sky with your telescope, a camera is the obvious next step — either pointed through what you've already got, or built into something new entirely. There are really two separate questions here: what can the telescope and mount actually track, and what are you using to capture the result? A £300 telescope can end up being a fun Moon-watcher or a proper deep-sky rig, and it comes down almost entirely to that second question — worth sorting out before you settle on a price point.
What You Can Capture
- Phone held up to the eyepiece - Good enough for the Moon and bright planets — you'll pick out Jupiter's cloud bands and Saturn's rings on a steady night. Deep-sky targets like nebulae and galaxies are basically off the table, since a phone can't do the long tracked exposures they need. It's free to try, though, before you spend a penny.
- DSLR or mirrorless - This is where real deep-sky imaging starts, but only once you pair it with a tracking mount — the camera on its own won't get you there. You get proper exposure times (tens of seconds to a few minutes per frame), RAW files give you room to process, and it's probably a camera you already own for other reasons. The catch is polar alignment, and eventually autoguiding.
- Dedicated cooled camera - Cooling kills the thermal noise that builds up over a long exposure, and mono sensors with a filter wheel let you shoot narrowband — isolating wavelengths like the Hα red and OIII teal this whole site's colour palette comes from. It's where serious imagers end up, but it's the priciest option on this list.
- Smart telescopes — mount, camera and stacking all built into one unit, run from your phone. It's the fastest way from unboxing to an actual deep-sky photo, just with less control over the process along the way. This is the category my own Seestar S50 belongs to — see the About page for more detail.
One Thing Worth Knowing First
If you already own a Dobsonian from the first-telescope stage, this is the bit to know before spending any money: its simple mount doesn't track the sky, which rules out the long exposures deep-sky imaging needs. Smart telescopes get around this by handling tracking internally. A DSLR or dedicated cooled camera needs a separate mount that actually tracks instead — an equatorial mount like the EQ5 below, not the Dobsonian's simple swivelling base.
By Price
These are rough UK price bands, not a hard line to stick to.
£400–£700 — smart telescope territory
One box does the mount, camera and stacking together — see the two options below for what that looks like at this price.
ZWO Seestar S50
The smart telescope my own gallery photos come from — phone-controlled, stacks exposures live, and gives you a real deep-sky image on screen in minutes.
Currently unavailable new everywhere, including on Amazon and at First Light Optics — ZWO have wound down the original S50 in favour of a pricier Pro model. This link goes to First Light Optics rather than Amazon, and it isn't an affiliate link — just the most useful place to check back or see if they're taking waitlist enquiries.
With new stock gone, used units (often £300–400) are increasingly the way to get one — worth checking Facebook Marketplace or eBay.
DWARFLAB Dwarf 3
A smaller, lighter alternative to the Seestar, and actually in stock — dual-lens design, same live-stacking approach, and small enough to fit in a coat pocket.
Prefer used? Worth checking Facebook Marketplace or eBay too — always worth comparing before buying new.
£700+ — a serious beginner rig
A tracking mount is what actually unlocks long-exposure DSLR imaging, not just brighter visual views — a proper investment, but one that keeps paying off as you improve.
Sky-Watcher Explorer-200P EQ5
Real aperture (200mm) on an equatorial mount that actually tracks the sky — the bit that unlocks long-exposure DSLR imaging. This is the manual EQ5, not the motorised GoTo version (out of stock when I checked) — you turn the slow-motion controls by hand, though a motor drive is a common later upgrade. The learning curve is real, but it's a rig you'll grow into, not out of.
Prefer used? Worth checking Facebook Marketplace or eBay too — always worth comparing before buying new.
For a real look at what these different setups produce on the same target, see Camera Comparisons.