Re: star hopping [Ammendment]
- From: "Stephen Paul" <smarshallpaul@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 11:04:06 -0400
"Stephen Paul" <spaul219@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:devbn3$ami$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> IME, there are two very positive cases for GoTo. One is for the
> uninitiated person with a serious interest in astronomy, who is less
> afraid of technology than they are of their ability to find objects in the
> sky. The other is for imaging, either remotely, or as has been pointed out
> recently, if searching for scientific purposes.
> ... I don't use electronics to find stuff. That's not necessarily a matter
> of choice, but rather of finances. My needs demanded higher end equipment,
> and so the gadgets were the first to go on the chopping block. I needed a
> stable mount that was capable of excellent tracking, more than I needed a
> mount that could automatically slew to an object. Especially an object
> that I can find on my own, given some patience, and a decent optical
> finder.
>
Having just aquired an Advanced Series C9.25GT to experiment with, I've
decided that I definitely love the living hell out of GoTo/DSCs. ;-)
I love my Losmandy G11 for rock solid stability, excellent tracking for
imaging, and its clutch system which allows free slewing with out having to
disengage them. But it is really a pleasure to have a mount that will do the
finding for me when observing mulitple objects in a single session. I like
to observe, and I like to take pictures. My skies aren't pristine, although
they are squarely in the VLM/NELM range of 5.5 at zenith. With skies that
aren't truly dark, it's more rewarding, IMO, to GoTo lots of objects in a
few hour observing session, rather than spending lots of time (10 minutes+)
nudging a scope with an object that took you 5 minutes+ to find due to lack
of familiarity.
As far as a setups are concerned, spending 30 minutes or so setting
everything up isn't uncommon for me regardless of what equipment I am using,
and I start before dark anyhow. Most of that time is consumed with trips
back and forth, and the additional time spent doing a polar alignment and
computer alignment, isn't any longer than the additional time it takes to
cool a larger scope. (Setups are a wash, except for the small refractor
(80ED in my case) on altazimuth mount.)
I'm now ready to sell the 12.5" Dob and the newly aquired AS-CG-5GT, and
purchase the Losmandy DSCs w/ArgoNavis. Manually hunting stuff down when
what you really want to do is look at stuff, and/or image, is not (as much)
fun IMO. My only regret is that the Gemini system is so damned expensive.
I've also heard bad things about its power requirements and ease of use.
The 12.5" Dob is nice for sure, but frankly I'd rather have the 3" smaller
scope with GoTo. The gain in brightness and detail of the larger scope in
mag 5.5 skies just isn't worth the trade off in effortlessness of using a
scope that can be aimed electronically, once the setup period is over.
I guess I'm back over that fence again..... ;-)
Of course, I could also look into selling off the C9.25, and some other
stuff, and moving up to a C11/G11 combo with very little trade off over the
12.5" Dob.
I won't abandon up my star-hopping skills though. Afterall, I will always
have a small refractor on an altazimuth mount for poking around.
.
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