Back to Home

Meade Forum Message

Forums: Atm · Astrophotography · Blackholes · Blackholes2 · CCD · Celestron · Domes · Education
Eyepieces · Meade · Misc. · God and Science · SETI · Software · UFO · XEphem
RSS Button

Home | Discussion Forums | Meade Equipment Discussion | Post
Login

Be the first pioneers to continue the Astronomy Discussions at our new Astronomy meeting place...
The Space and Astronomy Agora
Too Early To Tell

Forum List | Follow Ups | Post Message | Back to Thread Topics | In Response To
Posted by Daniel Johnson on September 8, 2003 21:24:45 UTC

There are two questions regarding accuracy of tracking. One is for purely visual use, i.e. no long-exposure photographs. There's no reason a Dob couldn't track just as accurately as Autostar does in altazimuth mode--it's just that motorized & computerized Dobs are new. The Dob is, after all, just a very simple and stable altazimuth mount. The computerized part is actually not new--for several years, companies have made computers that will tell you when your Dob is pointed at the object you want--you just have to push it there by hand, using the computer's feedback. No one has yet written reviews of the new Orion Dobs, which sound as if they're motorized,if I read the ads correctly. So the jury's out there.
Then there's the question of photography. For anything other than snapshots of the Moon or planets, one must have a polar mount. Dobs, or altazimuth mounts of any sort, won't do--the camera's field slowly rotates around the star that's in the center of view, causing streaking. Professional observatories get around this by adding a field derotator, a third axis of rotation for the camera. Meade sells a derotator, but it's a bad idea for amateurs--it requires three motors working in perfect synchrony at continuously varying rates, rather than just one doing 99.9% of the work at a constant rate.
By the way, the ETX mount is not accurate enough for long-exposure photography. The LX-90 mount can be forced to serve. The LX200 mount is made with photography in mind. For examples, see my new web site (it is only a few days old) at
http://hostingprod.com/@dgjohnson.net/night_vision.html

Follow Ups:

    Login to Post
    Additional Information
    Google
     
    Web www.astronomy.net
    DayNightLine
    About Astronomy Net | Advertise on Astronomy Net | Contact & Comments | Privacy Policy
    Unless otherwise specified, web site content Copyright 1994-2024 John Huggins All Rights Reserved
    Forum posts are Copyright their authors as specified in the heading above the post.
    "dbHTML," "AstroGuide," "ASTRONOMY.NET" & "VA.NET"
    are trademarks of John Huggins