Thank you very much for all the information!
We do have a few fixed camp spots so can definitely keep track of lat/long's.
I hadn't considered bino's but you raise some good points, thank you :-)
Keeping it well protected is going to be key and that is where I am finding some difficulties in terms of good padded boxes.
We have no shops at all so I can't easily walk in and buy materials to make my own either but slowly getting all the pieces to the puzzle together!
Many thanks
Quote:
Originally Posted by mura_gadi
Hello,
For most GOTO units you need to know the location in Lat/Long's for the telescope to fix itself, if you use fixed camping sites that should be easy.
Otherwise without knowing your true location the GOTO may not work as expected. However you can still use the controller to move the scope, which is far easier than manually operated for keeping some objects in the field of view.
The refractor might prove more resilient at living in the back of the ute. You will have to collimate every night with a newt, a SCT may not survive, but a refractor is fairly bullet proof collimation wise. However, if a refractors collimations goes, it goes back to the store, the newt you can collimate yourself again easily.
With any sort of magnification you will need a tripod/stand as well. They can be expensive, a good feature of a tabletop unit is the inclusion of a mount/tripod for very little money.
I'd keep an open mind to a set of bino's on a tripod as well, you can very wide field of views from bino's that telescopes can't match. They are also very robust and small, great for the moon and sky scanning but only around 12-20 magnification so not great for planets... but two 80mm/100mm lenses capture a lot of light.
What ever you pick, get good lens covers and a good padded box for life in the ute.
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