Question I want to get back to my passion of astronomy. Time to buy a telescope again!

[Khaled Alwaleed]

Hello,
I'm thinking of buying a telescope again after almost 15 years, it's time to go back again. Can you help me narrow down my options? It'll be used mainly for galaxy and star gazing as well as planetary too. I'd like it motorized and astrophotography capable through my computer not a camera would be preferable. Budget really isn't an issue.

What top of the line telescopes do you recommend?

 

[AnAverageIndianBoy]

Celestron telescopes are awesome

 

[Helio]

Will you be wanting to travel with it? [Weight and size issues.]
Do you plan to have it in a dome? [Allows bigger scopes, usually.]
Do you have nice skies? [Bad skies deserve less investment, IMO.]
How serious is your photography idea? [Astrophotography usually means long exposures, but not always. So the type of mount becomes important.]

 

[Khaled Alwaleed]

Will you be wanting to travel with it? [Weight and size issues.]
Do you plan to have it in a dome? [Allows bigger scopes, usually.]
Do you have nice skies? [Bad skies deserve less investment, IMO.]
How serious is your photography idea? [Astrophotography usually means long exposures, but not always. So the type of mount becomes important.]

I won’t be doing much traveling with it further than a few hours by car.
No dome.
yes we do.
I‘m just getting into astrophotographery so it’ll be something new for me but super into starting it.

 

[Helio]

I haven't stayed current on all the latest gear, but....
Here is a site they may help.

 

[astrofineart]

Always a challenging question! Don´t forget, the telescope is not the only thing to think about. A good mount (for astrophotography) and a good camera are as much as important if not more than a good telescope. So if budget isn´t an issue:
- mount: if you are serious on astrophotography, go to higher end mount and avoid midclass celestron or skywatcher: go for Astro-Physics, Paramount and some other high end mount like Avalon. Expansive mount, but they will be a lifetime buy and you won´t have to bother on issues to fix or tricks to make it work well (specially challenging when you work at high FL, >1000mm).
- telescope: APO for widefield (triplet and higher for astrophotography, japanese Takahashi being reference by many), nebula etc and corrected SCT for planetary (Meade like Celestron will be good to go), there isn´t unfortunately "1" that fits all. Start with APO
- camera: CCD or CMOS special cameras (Atik, Apogee, Starlight Xpress and number of other ones available, to choose once you made up your mind on telescope so you fit the right chip size, pixel size to your imaging ring), mono and get filters. Guider also needed.