Re: Drives for CCD photography

Jim Klein <jameseklein@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:l3don217s6nhkst2ieu4jico427nonlemh@xxxxxxx:

Is this correct ?

Yes.

If so, when I buy my next telescope with which I plan to do CCD
photography, what do I need to look for and ask for in the product I
buy.

Chances are that you will be autoguiding(*) when taking long CCD exposures.
Any mount able to autoguide with enough precision should be OK. That's of
course a matter of load, and also matter of comfort. A mount such as the
Losmandy G11 should give you acceptable results with some work whereas a
AP/Paramount/high end Takahashi will give you great results with minimum
effort.

If your horizon is "a few years", simply wait. The advances in computing
support to pointing and tracking accuracy aren't going to stop suddenly and
have now become essential if you have good enough hardware to begin with.

(*) Autoguiding basically images a guide star, as you manually/visually
would, calculates its centroid, calculates the correction required to re-
center it and issues commands to the mount.
.

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