Roadmap to the Universe - Part I

We just bought a Celestron Nexstar SE6 telescope along with the Eyepiece Kit and Power Tank. 

The Nexstar is a go-to scope. That means its computerized and you can use the inbuilt hand controller to tell the scope where to point to. This sounds quite cool but the interface is limited to a small LCD display with brief information. As a beginner I don't know where constellations are in the sky and I obviously haven't memorized the Messier (M) numbers. 

I did some digging around on how I could improve my setup. I found tons of upgrades and options. There is an insane array of gadgets you can buy for your scope and they all add up quite quickly price-wise. I realized that I would need to enter this arena carefully! I decided to use things that I have and keep costs to a minimum until I can justify a larger purchase. 

I laid my plan out and decided to work on it in increments. 

The Grand Plan is broken down into 3 phases:

1. Control - gain remote control of the scope from a laptop using Stellarium
2. Photography - connect a DLSR (Nikon D60) to the scope and gain remote control of it from the laptop 
3. Video - gain remote control of a webcam from a laptop

And the Grand Plan..

Stay tuned for the next steps