Start here
Six ways in
Not sure where to begin? Pick the one that sounds like you.
I've never owned a telescope
How telescopes actually work, what you'll really see, and the four we'd recommend - in about five minutes of plain English.
Read the beginner's guideJust lookingI want to look, not photograph
Aperture per dollar, and nothing else to buy. Dobsonians from 6 to 16 inches, GoTo flex-tube versions that find the object for you, a 102 mm refractor that lives by the back door, and binoculars.
See the visual gearDaytimeI want to watch the Sun
The one target that's up while you are. Hydrogen-alpha telescopes from Sky-Watcher and DayStar, Quark filters that turn a refractor you already own into a solar scope, and a mount that finds the Sun by itself.
See the solar gearFirst photosI want to photograph the sky
How astrophotography works, whether a smart telescope or a real rig suits you, and complete setups from $680 up.
Read the imaging guideCamera you ownI already have a camera and lenses
Wildlife and landscape photographers already own the expensive half. A star tracker turns 15-second frames into five-minute ones - no telescope, no adapters, no back focus.
See the tracker packagesGoing furtherI'm building a serious rig
Seven complete systems, from a Takahashi BabyQ to a 185 mm apo. Mount, optics, back focus and filters worked out - camera, guiding and filters your choice.
See the advanced packagesPopular Categories
Ships from Bolton Ontario
Astrophotography
Build your imaging rig, in the right order
The most common expensive mistake is buying the scope first. Start at the mount and work outward.
Mount
Everything else is replaceable. This isn't. Buy for 60% of the rated payload and you'll never fight it.
AM3N Harmonic Equatorial Mount$2,099New ZWO AM5N Harmonic Equatoria...$2,799Telescope
Focal length decides what you can shoot. Short and fast for nebulae, long for galaxies - pick one, not both.
Starfield Gear60Q 60mm f/5 Petz...$1,269.99Starfield Optics Gear Series 80...$1,200Camera
Match pixel size to focal length, not to megapixels. Cooled if you're stacking hours; one-shot colour to start.
ASI585MC Pro$849ZWO ASI2600MC Duo$2,539Filters & control
Where a suburban sky gets rescued. Dual-band first, then narrowband, then a proper filter wheel.
Antlia ALP-T Dual Band 5nm Filt...$474.99Guidescope suitability tool→Free - no account needed
Eleven tools we built because we needed them
Nobody else in Canada publishes these. They bring people to the site who aren't shopping yet - which is exactly who we want to meet.
Courses & workshops
Learn it from people who shoot from Ontario skies
Live on Zoom, recorded for anyone who can't make the night. Small groups.
Can't make a date?
One-on-one, on your own gear
An hour with an imager, working through your actual setup and your actual data.
- Screen-share your capture session
- Fix the thing that's been bugging you for months
- Bring your own subs and process them together
Come see it for yourself
There's a real shop behind this website
The Bolton showroom
Look through it before you buy it. We keep working examples of the popular mounts and scopes set up, and you're welcome to bring your own gear in to compare.
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The Astronomy Journal
Written by people who use this stuff
Buying guides, troubleshooting and what's worth pointing at this month.
astrophotography · 31 July 2026
Your Guide Graph Is Lying to You
You drove ninety minutes to dark sky, PHD2 held 0.4 arcseconds all night, and half your subs still have eggs for stars. Here are the three things your guider cannot see — and how...