>>4268960ah thanks. the 3x teleconverter came with the 400mm prime lens but i'm not sold on the idea of using it. they seem to dramatically increase aberrations / reduce image quality, and 400mm seems more than enough to image some beginner-friendly targets. i'm talking the orion nebula, andromeda galaxy, globular clusters in the milky way, and lunar and solar imaging (i have a thousand oaks filter on order for the eclipse). lots of practice is definitely part of the equation
i guess a better / more targeted question would be: if i had a budget of say $750, a reasonably capable microscope photography setup, and a year to adapt it to astro, what should i buy to maximize the value of my budget, for the purpose of imaging relatively bright/close targets? i was thinking something like this shopping list (not to buy immediately, but to wait until after i practice basic things like solar/lunar and wide-field milky way)
>sky-watcher star adventurer 2i pro (used)>astronomik light pollution clip-filter>bahtinov mask>intervalometer>the best tripod i can find (used) 