Quote:
Originally Posted by Satchmo
My perspective is a little different- I now put tracking ability above GOTO or setting circles, on my wish list. Having tracking is just like adding a few inches of aprture as you brain really has a chance to intergrate faint details.
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I could not agree more. When I got my HEQ5Pro mount (my first computerised mount) I bought it for tracking things in the viewfinder that would otherwise be too fleeting to enjoy.
I had previously dabbled with EQ mounts that had just an RA motor but I could never get those to track properly (due to my lack of skill in setting them up properly). I had hoped I could just point the HEQ5 roughly south and the 3-star alignment would detect and compensate for any setup errors. I had wrongly assumed that the mount would use the alignment information for tracking, but it doesn't (it's only used for GOTO).
So, I ended up with a mount that would point with reasonable accuracy after a quick setup, but still track poorly at high magnification unless set up meticulously. This means a lengthy setup involving compass, bubble level, clinometer, sometimes several tries due to SynScan bugs/idiosyncrasies. Plus, I lost the ability to point manually.
This is why those tracking Dobs (which all seem to be GOTO these days) are so attractive to me. Not only do they hold much bigger OTAs than any EQ mount in my price range could ever hope to, they also let me point manually and then track whatever I pointed to. All this after nothing more than levelling the base and doing a two-star alignment. The GOTO and identify functions are nice to have gimmicks, but fast setup and good tracking is what I'm really after.
Cheers
Steffen.