Quote:
Originally Posted by Zuts
......... so what else makes a 6,000 AUD losmandy a better mount. And before everyone jumps in and flames me IMHO if you get round stars on a 30 minute exposure it's a good mount; and a PE of 1 arcsecond would go a long way to acheiving this.
Paul
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Ok. I'll bite. Current G-11's running at around +/- 3-4 arc sec -uncorrected.
They are fully machined, made of brush finished anodized T6 & ground stainless, and have high precision shaft bearings and phosphor bronze worms plus a tripod built like the proverbial brick dunny. Then there is the Gemini system.....and T-Point like modeling in a box.
BTW a Benz also costs more than a Hyundai. Sucks doesn't it?
I digress.
This old chestnut has surfaced before...but I figure I'll say it again: with a common garden rock I can get round stars with a 2 minute exposure and 8mm fisheye.
But, at a FL of 2900mm, and one heck of nice mount, I've found some serious guiding is mandatory.
I suppose the point I am making is: even if there was such a thing as a "perfect" mount, unless you are imaging in a vacuum, the earth's atmosphere will happily make your deep sky stars look egg shaped.
IMHO if you want to get tighter stars, feeding back what the tracking and atmosphere is doing to the image is *way more* important than fussing over a super accurate RA rate.