It Comes Down to Go-To vs Dobsonian + Argo Navis?

[marki]

Originally Posted by GH1967

Can you elaborate on what you mean in the the bolded part below?

Most advice I am getting here and with astronomers I have met seems to point me towards dobsonians.

Astrophotgraphy will probably never be on my radar.

Most objects are too dim to see any colour unless you use a CCD camera so they appear in shades of grey.

Mark

[marki]

Originally Posted by AstroJunk

More Irony.

Dob owners unite!

You know I am right. My aren't we sensitive, seemed quite okay to bag CATS half a dozen posts ago .

Mark

[GH1967]

Thanks.

This is a little disconcerting. You're basically saying observational astronomy is colourless and soon gets tedious, and only astrophotgraphy and the colours it can bring out is really worth pursuing?

If thats the case I don't think this is dobsonian-specific, because as I understand it you see less with an EQ mount than a dob (except maybe on planets), and everything is still 'greyscale' with an EQ unless you get into photography?

Originally Posted by marki

Most objects are too dim to see any colour unless you use a CCD camera so they appear in shades of grey.

Mark

[marki]

Originally Posted by GH1967

Thanks.

This is a little disconcerting. You're basically saying observational astronomy is colourless and soon gets tedious, and only astrophotgraphy and the colours it can bring out is really worth pursuing?

If thats the case I don't think this is dobsonian-specific, because as I understand it you see less with an EQ mount than a dob (except maybe on planets), and everything is still 'greyscale' with an EQ unless you get into photography?

Thats about the size of it I am affraid but we all have our preferences and this is simply my opinion. As you have said it is not dob specific, even the largest amature scopes will only reveal a hint of colour as they cannot collect enough photons to fire the cones on our retina. You may love visual observing but you will never see the universe in the bright colours seen in so many of the astro mags. That is why I suggest you get a goto EQ mount. You can still mount a good size newt on it as well as other types of scope (there is no one scope type that does it all) and if you are not satisfied with visual observing you have the basic tools to try your hand at taking pics without having to accept the pain of selling off gear cheap so you can move on to other things. There are many other advantages to a goto as well e.g. finding targets quickly so you can spend more time looking rather then searching as well as the mounts ability to keep a target centered in the eyepiece. The argo navis units are good for finding things on a dob and are reasonably priced but tracking systems for dobs cost big bucks and are only worth the financial pain if you have a real monster, otherwise they are not good value. I am not against visual astronomy by the way and many on this forum love to do just that. I prefer to try my hand at all aspects in this hobby and taking pics certainly adds that missing dimension for me.

Mark

[Steffen]

Originally Posted by marki

Thats about the size of it I am affraid but we all have our preferences and this is simply my opinion. As you have said it is not dob specific, even the largest amature scopes will only reveal a hint of colour as they cannot collect enough photons to fire the cones on our retina.

Your preference is of course nothing that can be argued with, but I suspect you're mostly in love with your expensive imaging gear, EQ mount and all.

My rig is a simple visual one (just an Alt-Az mounted Mak and a laptop with assorted planetarium software) and I enjoy finding things and looking at them with my own eyes. Whenever I have an urge for colourful images with a lot of detail I can guarantee that I'm getting better, more colourful and more detail-rich images with this gear than you, simply by using the right technique.

My technique is basically to visit hubblesite or similar and downloading pictures while stroking my Mak I cannot possibly ever beat what's on offer there, so why should I spends thousands of dollars trying? Unless I'm deeply infatuated with and like surrounding myself and tinkering with expensive yet inadequate equipment. Which I'm not. But that's just my preference

Cheers
Steffen.

[GrahamL]

Yes visual observing is without colour for the most part.

As for tedious ? .. Not sure on that one theres plenty who never feel the need to move on to photography.. The experiance of finding and catching those photons as they left there source all those millions of years back with your own eye is not to shabby Imo.

Whatever mount your scope sits on won't effect what you see
apperture( size of the scope) and conditions will .

To divert the conversation a little back to earlier suggestions , I think its important as mentioned to spend some time with others and there scopes to get an idea what appealls to YOU.

Its not unusal for some new to astronomy to tip a lot of cash into visual gear to find pretty quickly they wan't to move on photography.

Whatever you choose its all good

[casstony]

Not sure why the temperature is elevated in this thread - they're all good scopes - must be a virus going around .

GH1967, if you find yourself stuck in analysis paralysis just grab a 10" dob without a computer and go to a club observing night - the people there will have you looking at the biggest and best objects in a flash, all for a minimal investment. You can upgrade to Argo navis or a goto schmidt cassegrain or a bigger dob at a later date.

I would not recommend a goto equatorial mount for visual observing - too complex for a beginner.

[Satchmo]

What is it with seeing colour?. Is it not enough to be seeing light that may have been travelling even hundreds of millions of years to reach your eyes
IMHO opinion beginners need to get their bearings by starting off with a good visual scope first and do some time appreciating DSO's live in real time. Photography is a great place to go once you have learnt the basics and got a reall feel by direct observation of where we are in the Universe.

[michaellxv (Michael)]

On the weekend I finally made it out to Stockport for one of ASSA's public nights. I looked through several different size and shape scopes and learned a lot about what I like and don't like about each. As many have said already the best option it to get out and try some.

On the specifics on Goto vs Dob. For the past 18months I have been using an 80mm refractor on a goto mount. It has served me well and I have found lots of interesting stuff to look at.

On the weekend I had the opportunity to play with a 12" Lightbridge. I have never used a dob before. Using only the red-dot finder I was able move around the sky and find various objects that I am familiar with. Then after checking a chart and some pointing in the general area of the sky I was able to find some objects I had not seen before.

Goto is nice but no substitute for aperture. The 12" is still out of my price range but I know i'll be saving up for the closest I can get

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by Steffen

My rig is a simple visual one (just an Alt-Az mounted Mak and a laptop with assorted planetarium software) and I enjoy finding things and looking at them with my own eyes. Whenever I have an urge for colourful images with a lot of detail I can .........

.......... look them up on the internet

I find visual observing to be a personal and in some way intimate experience, whilst images on a computer screen to be rather the opposite.

Many a time i have viewed objects directly and then later looked them up online to compare what I was seeing, but I have never had the urge to spend 10's of thousands of dollars attempting to match the quality of images I can access online for free

I cannot possibly ever beat what's on offer there, so why should I spends thousands of dollars trying?

Yup thats what I reckon too

[astroron (Ron)]

I don't get the same feeling of awe looking at an image of The Eta Carina Nebula and the Homunculus as I do looking through my 16" scope from a Dark Sky.
The Nebulous Dark Lanes and seeing detail give me more satisfaction than any image ever does
No Image in my opinion compares with the visual splendour of Open Clusters
or Globular Clusters such as Omega Centaurus or 47Tuc in a medium to large telescope, or even small scopes of around 4"-6"
Maybe the images of galaxies is a possible exception, but when you consider you are looking at light that has traveled millions of light years to reach your Retina,then the wonder of this fact compensates for the lack of colour in your visual image
P.S.
I do enjoy the images that are taken by both Amateur and Professional
Telescope and have commented favourably on them and will continue to do so, But I will always get more enjoyment observing things myself if however possible

[erick (Eric)]

Sometimes, I find myself wishing that there didn't need to be that cm or two of glass in the eyepiece between my eye and the object

[marki]

Originally Posted by Steffen

Your preference is of course nothing that can be argued with, but I suspect you're mostly in love with your expensive imaging gear, EQ mount and all.

Cheers
Steffen.

Nah it's a pain in the bottom mostly and it is a rare night when it all works but I have got people talking now haven't I .

Mark

[marki]

Originally Posted by michaellxv

Goto is nice but no substitute for aperture. The 12" is still out of my price range but I know i'll be saving up for the closest I can get

How about a 12" on a goto, best of both worlds and offers lots more flexibility for future requirements .

Mark

[marki]

Originally Posted by Steffen

I cannot possibly ever beat what's on offer there, so why should I spends thousands of dollars trying?
Cheers
Steffen.

Is the goal to beat all the other astrophotographers or just produce the best images you can? I get most satisfaction from imaging through my little 80mm apo ($800) on my secondhand sphinx ($1400). Sure my CCD cost a few bob but as others have shown great results can be had using a cheap DSLR camera so you needn't spend a fortune on gear. I have other larger scopes of many types but the sphinx and 80 apo are just so convienient to setup and deliver results I can happily live with and far exceed anything I can view visually even through the larger aperture scopes I have. The only exception I can really think of is starring at Tuc 47 through the 10" LX200R with a 17mm ethos or 14mm XW. You just fall into it and I have not seen any image of it that delivers the same experience.

Mark

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

Originally Posted by marki

You know I am right. My aren't we sensitive, seemed quite okay to bag CATS half a dozen posts ago .

Mark

Only because I own a big CAT

[coldspace]

Yep we all want our Big Mac and large fries at Macca's in 30 seconds.(Instant satisfaction)

I see you are in Sydney,so unless you are prepared to travel well ou into the country all the time then visual stuff will quickly bore you in the city.

I love visual, but only when I get out to pure dark sky 3 times a year with at least 12 inch eyes but then after looking through 20,25 and 30 inch scopes in dark skies on a few occasions I have been spoilt.

Don't have the time nor patience ATM to learn the hard art of imaging,maybe later i life when buisiness/family comitments settle down.

So if you want instant colour gratification on most Messier objects and a lot of the NGC ones in polluted skies, do what I did.

Get a Mallincam VSS and a goto Cat like the C8 or bigger like my Meade 12 and blow your mind and family/friends away on upto 30 objects a night in suburbia. Best piece of gear I ever bought for this hobby, and you can still use the Cat for visual use as well.

You can use the video systems with Dobs if you have some tracking like servo cat.

I would get along to a few club meets in dark skies first if you can to see what you think you will need.


Matt.

[GH1967]

I'm a bit confused by your post because on the one hand you say:

Originally Posted by coldspace

I see you are in Sydney,so unless you are prepared to travel well ou into the country all the time then visual stuff will quickly bore you in the city.

But on the other hand:

Get a Mallincam VSS and a goto Cat like the C8 or bigger like my Meade 12 and blow your mind and family/friends away on upto 30 objects a night in suburbia.

So are you saying astronomy quickly gets old in cities unless you have GOTO-tracking ability?

[coldspace]

What I mean is,

You will run out of objects to view visually if your light pollution is bad.
Most objects are so faint even a decent 12 inch mirror has trouble seeing them, its the sky glow from all the city lights that drain out this very faint light from outer space.
Don't get me wrong, you can still see things in the city like planets/openclusters/ some globs/and M42 thegreat orion neb if condtions are clear.

To really get long term enjoyment from visual astronomy you need to go to darker skies like at least 100ks or better yet 200ks out of town or more.

In suburbia, goto tracking as with the meades/celestrons or push to object finders such as Argo Navis or the new orion XX dobs is a must to find things as conventional visual star hoping with a push around dob for a bigginer will be very,very,very frustrating trying to find alot of things.
This is why you see alot of bigginers jumping in and soon the scope get put in the corner of the lounge room gathering dust.
I know, done this before twice over the last 15 yrs till I got the bug again and technology had made my instant satisfaction needs viable.

I quickly got bored with my 12inch Meade ACF in the suburbs so bought a high sensitivity colour video system that just sits in the eyepiece holder and displays in real time on a screen the object most in colour in real time that are invisible in the eyepiece of a 12 inch in moderate light pollution. The camera is thousands of times more sensitive than our eyes so can pick up things we can't see. It works well on moon/planets as well.

You can see why most venture into somesort of electronic imaginging if you have bad light pollution.

Get a large dob if you want say 10 inch or bigger, the solid tube 12 inchers are good value but are about the size of a hot water system, the orion truss 12 and 14 incher truss pole dobs with the auto locater look good but be prepared to take it out to some dark skies to be able to see a massive difference but they don't have motor tracking so down the track if you want to try video or conventional imaging down the track you can't.

I love visually using the scope as well even in suburbia with the kids on planets/moon and a very few other objects but soon got bored with it unless in pure/pristine dark skies 200ks out from Brisbane or more but mst people don't have the time to do this more than a few times a year.

See if you can get out to one of the club meets and try some gear first.
Conventional astro imaging is a very big learning curve and plenty of dollars need to be invested into it even to set up a basic system.
I went the video way for home use as its far easier to learn and gives me alot of instant satisfaction if I can only spare a few hrs a week to get under the sky.

[rat156]

Firstly, let me remind you all that a Dob is the mount, the telescope in general is a Newtonian reflector.

For someone starting out with little knowledge of the night sky and little knowledge of what they want to do in Astronomy I would recommend a smallish (8-10") SCT. I know they work pretty well for most things, but will let you down on the very faint stuff. I know this because that's the way I started a few years ago.

Now look at the list of stuff I have in my sig. and you'll see that my preference shifted to photography pretty quickly, I enjoy the satisfaction of taking the image, be it deep sky or planetary. That said I still like to go visual every now and again, I disticntly remember the first time I saw 47Tuc through an eyepiece with my 8" SCT.

For my own personal preference the SCT beats the Newt because of the relative lack of coma in widefield views and the longer native FL is good for planetary and comet observations as well as galaxies. The Newts win in cost per inch of aperture without doubt, but sometimes this is unuseable in cities because of the overwhelming LP.

Cheers
Stuart

I love Goto, as an absolute beginner can be up and going and looking at stuff in minutes. I would not advise any beginner to get a goto GEM in the Southern Hemisphere, polar alignment is too hard for a beginner and they'll quickly bore of the task. Let nature take it's course and if the beginner enjoys taking photographs through their scope then they'll graduate to a mount that's more appropriate (there goes the $4k budget). Otherwise they have a good all-round scope that's easy to setup and transport with a mount that knows where all the "cool" stuff is.