EQ Mount

[picklesrules (Nicholas)]

Hey guys
Im looking at getting an eq mount for AP but i hear alot of you guys saying Go-To is no necessary so how do the mounts with just the clock drives work?

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

In all honestly, I go with GOTO. It's not necessary, but, imho, it'll make your life easier.

Dave

[danielsun]

My advise for Astro photography is to go for a EQ GO TO mount straight up. It will make life so much easier and save you the trouble of upgrading later on and if you really get serious about it you may want to be able to auto guide.
Standard clock drive mount may suit you mainly for budget $$$ ,piggy back widefield shots and visual.

Cheers Daniel.

[Blue Skies (Jacquie)]

EQ mounts are designed to allow movement around two axes - one for RA and one for Dec. The most important one is the RA axis. You line up your RA axis exactly with the south celestial pole, and if you do it right the clock drive will move your mount around that axis during the night and track the stars. If you get it right you only need to use the dec motor to move to another object. But more often than not, despite your best efforts it will still be a little off, even with using the drift alignment method to tweak your accuracy, you'll need to use some sort of adjustment to keep things in the field of view throughout the night.

Using a goto often shortcuts all of the above rigmarol (which it can be at times) which is why so many people like them. But they aren't perfect. Nothing is, so still be prepared to do some work.

[sheeny (Al)]

I used to own a mount with clock drive (and drive corrector) in the days before gotos. There is no choice... go for a goto!

Al.

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

getting your goto accurate is a mission if your new to the game, once you have figured out how to get goto to drop targets in the middle of your CCD/CMOS that need at least a 1 min exp at iso 1600 to see them is imperitive. Then having the ability to guide is even more so. If you could purchase a EQ6 mount without the hand controller and utilize the Laptop to be the brains for the mount that would be great! other wize you just have 2 brains for the mount