Mezolitik

I do however wonder if having to manually track and item will drive me mad, that I can’t answer. I presume anything I have in the viewfinder will move out of it in about a minute’s time, and I am guessing that without a finder scope you really are point and find. Finding, and refining sounds tedious.

Please correct me if I am wrong, I don’t have any first hand experience. This kind of make me feel if you lose track of something (say after reviewing a planisphere for a minute or two, you may have to drop down magnifications in order to find the object again, to then increase the magnification once found; sounds tedious).

Finding and following is half the fun, in my opinion. Stars do move fairly quickly, but as long as you know what direction they are heading in, you can usually find them again without changing the eyepieces - provided that you're not gone for a long time.

Also, I had - and still have - a great deal of trouble using a finderscope. I found Betelgeuse twice in succession while trying to get Sirius in the eyepiece; it's still a case of point and find even with a finderscope until you get used to things - at least in my experience, it is!

My 2nd favorite star dying is a shame.

What's your first?

It would be a shame if ol' Betel explodes; surely, having it around for a while is worth more than a short post-supernova spectacular?