Stupid Question?

[DaveyLeo10]

I'm looking to buy a Cassegrain telescope (Budget around £1,000. From what I can see most telescopes of this style have some kind of computerised database which for me personally isn't something I want to have because it would take away from the good old fashioned exploring.

My question is do al Cassegrain telescopes need some kind of computerised motor etc? 

I feel like there's a really obvious reason but I can't see it.

[Gutross]

you can purchase a cassegrain OTA with out a tripod and buy a tripod thats not computerized that can handle the weight

[BeanerSA]

Is a reason why you wouldn't buy a dobsonian?

[DaveyLeo10]

I live in an apartment so I'm concerned about how much space I will have if I buy something bigger.

[BeanerSA]

I live in an apartment so I'm concerned about how much space I will have if I buy something bigger.

That's a good point. How about a collapsible?

[ronin]

They are (I think) better suited to be computerised, being up around f/10 and a long focal length then field of view tends to be small.

An 8" is usually around 2035mm FL, with a 30mm eyepiece that gives a mag of 68x, that in turn give a field of view to you of just under a degree. Now that is around the biggest you get.

This means that you have to point the scope accurately at whichever object to get it in view, secondly it means anything in view drifts out/across very quick. So tracking and goto suit the nature of the scope. Throw in that a short scope suits a goto and the motor drive mechanism then the pairing sort of comes together.

Put a 12mm in to view Jupiter and you have 170x and Jupiter drifts from centre to edge in 40 seconds. You do not get much time to view before you are readjusting the scope to just keep it in view.

I have a little 105 Mak and would not consider it as a practical scope without at least tracking and for acquiring a target goto.

[happy-kat]

I can see living in an apartment could be as much about actually getting a telescope out side to use as the space to store it.

[Scott]

you could always just not use it when you feel like exploring, then you've got the added bonus of it being there when time is short ?

[Peter Drew]

You don't have to use the goto if you prefer not to but it's there if you change your mind.  

[xtreemchaos]

i had goto with my 200p when i first got it, after a week sold the goto bit on ebay,and got some tracking motors,you see i have been useing starmaps for years and the goto bit took a bit of the fun out of it for me"i like the hunt". goto is good and works well but i like the old fasion way..charl..

[Cornelius Varley]

I'm looking to buy a Cassegrain telescope (Budget around £1,000. From what I can see most telescopes of this style have some kind of computerised database which for me personally isn't something I want to have because it would take away from the good old fashioned exploring.

My question is do al Cassegrain telescopes need some kind of computerised motor etc? 

I feel like there's a really obvious reason but I can't see it.

At the higher end of the market most telescopes will have some form of goto mount. With alt-azimuth goto mounts they will probably need to star aligned to ensure it tracks properly. Equatorial mounts would only need to be polar aligned and the star alignment skipped to be used without the goto. 

[bingevader]

It certainly isn't a stupid question.

I have an ETX90.

Whilst to begin with, the goto and tracking were brilliant in order to find and hold objects in the FOV, I don't use the goto at all any more, and the tracking very rarely (usually when showing friends or family).

As long as you can find the object you are looking for, I don't find nudging my ETX90 (with the brakes slackened off) any more difficult than the 8" dob.

[DaveyLeo10]

It will be used on my balcony and will be taken out to so size and ease of use (no awkward eyepiece positions) are a priority. A Schmidt-Cassegrain seems to be a popular choice. I'm not sure whether to go for a 6 inch or go a little more expensive for the 8 inch.... How much difference in image quality is there between the two?

[dfish]

daveyleo --

As a beginner with some celestial navigation familiariy, I'm somewhat comfortable stargazing and star hoppnig -- so I had a similar/related question...

I had the thought that I'd rather put money into the mount and scope rather than goto and I've not found it easy to get high quality mount with just digital motor drives sans goto in the US -- my choices seem to be manual EQ or goto for the most part. 

The only serious alternative that I've found, but one that is rather pricey, is the Losmandy GM8-S (S version being the one without the goto) for ~ USD $1500 / GBP £980.. but in that case I'm not sure it's a big win over say, an Orion Sirius EQ-G with goto at $1200 / £770.   My tentative impression is simply that goto has come down in cost so much that, other than for camera/tracker oriented mounts, it's pretty much part of the package if the mount is motorised.
 

Cheers,

-- David