Tom E. wrote:
http://www.buytelescopes.com/product...pid=4681&m=102

With this setup and optional motor drive, what kind of luck would
someone have in imaging stars without smear? Is a guiding scope
absolutely essential for any level of astrophotography? If so, what
is the cheapest way of going about that? I am not interested in
diving right into imaging, but want something that has the potential
in the future. Thanks,
-Tom

The Vixen GP is a good choice with a lot of flexibility without implicit
financial ruin. But astrophotography can mean many different things
depending on who you are talking to. So explaining what kind of imaging you
might want to attempt could be helpful.

I own two Vixen mounts: a Super Polaris (the predecessor to the GP) , and a
GPDX. What I like about these mounts is among other things the ability to
replace motors and controllers with 3rd party solutions that are very good
quality and cheaper than the original. The SP mount was bought many years
ago when I had zero experience, but I still use it today.

Whether you need guiding or not depends on the focal length and exposure
time of the camera you are imaging with. And guiding is not the only option,
periodic error correction can be an alternative. But these things are not
what people start using without some experience. For wide field imaging, all
you need is a good motor like the MT-1/SD-1 shown, but you will not be able
to use any guidecamera with it.

clear skies
Carsten A. Arnholm
http://arnholm.org/
N59.776 E10.457