Give me some good resons why I don't need a GOTO.....

[Jeff RV]

I agree with that one Ron.

How nice it is when a newcomer using a goto slews to M51 or m42 and hay presto there it is in the ep,admitted it could be a slower learning curve,but i think it makes people realize just whats out there to see and it holds there attention to see more.

Jeff.

[Jeff RV]

Ron, Good seeing with your 12" LX90 you'll! love it.

It is a bit of a lump though.

Jeff.

[barkis]

I agree with that one Ron.

How nice it is when a newcomer using a goto slews to M51 or m42 and hay presto there it is in the ep,admitted it could be a slower learning curve,but i think it makes people realize just whats out there to see and it holds there attention to see more.

Jeff.

Sure thing Jeff. I am sure once I have seen what the LX can do for real, I will become a total convert to GoTo Systems.

[SteelRat]

Like those shots Ron. Nice setup in pic 2 8)

[Macavity]

Some interesting points here. Certainly the idea of "comfortable observing zones" seems to help with setting circles! Also, I found the manufacturer description of these tended to be a bit cryptic. Polar aligment scopes seem to require limbo dancing skills(!) and I found illuminating the reticule at the same time quasi impossible. But more specifically, the "vague friction" mechanism on my scope's RA setting never seemed to QUITE work. I sometimes wonder if the "ship is being spoiled for a ha'porth o tar". It does seem true that a lot of "amateur" (Web) descriptions of setting up and using setting circles are a lot more transparent than many a user-manual effort...

[Chubster]

Got to admit I keep thinking of GOTO. Was out again lastnight looking for the pinwheel...nothing. But I do not think my present viewing location will make it worth while. Can just see it now, enter target wait excitedly for it to slew into action...look through eyepiece, neighbours window :shock:

[Whippy]

Got to admit I keep thinking of GOTO. Was out again lastnight looking for the pinwheel...nothing. But I do not think my present viewing location will make it worth while. Can just see it now, enter target wait excitedly for it to slew into action...look through eyepiece, neighbours window :shock:

:D You Voyuer you!

[Chubster]

I keep telling her that she is tooo close to get focus but not sure she believes me

[Astroman]

As I've mentioned before, and again, I have the locations of well over 100 objects stashed away in my head for basically any night, any time, any scope. It took a number of years to accumulate this data, but I never fail to impress at public star parties. If I don't know where to find something, I use manual setting circles. I find most GOTO scopes do not have the ability to operate in manual mode, so if something happens to your battery or drive, you pack up and go home. I had my drive die on the second night of the Grand Canyon Star Party a few years ago and was still able to blow the socks off anyone in the field, including showing a guy Markarian's Chain with his own 24" Dob without using his digital setting circles for the first time, and for the entire week. It is an indispensable skill and I guarantee you won't learn it with GOTO.

All it takes is practice and patience. Dark skies help.

I am anti GOTO, unless and until you learn the sky on your own. Or, if you jump right to imaging, which is another story...

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Absolutely correct AM. Based on cloud free dark skies, I'd agree 100% that goto isn't necessary and is a bad thing generally. Here in shiny sky cloudsville I think it's different for most of us.

I've learnt more about where stuff is in the sky using Starry Night software than actually looking at it, because out of a week's available night sky I get about two hours if I'm lucky. Some people can actually see Leo's sickle asterism, which is in several books that I own, but from where I live those stars are binocular only targets. I get a big triangle of stars and that's what I have to use to find Leo, the rest simply aren't there.

As you say AM, imaging is another story. The last resort of us light polluted die-hards.

Captain Chaos

[barkis]

As I've mentioned before, and again, I have the locations of well over 100 objects stashed away in my head for basically any night, any time, any scope. It took a number of years to accumulate this data, but I never fail to impress at public star parties. If I don't know where to find something, I use manual setting circles. I find most GOTO scopes do not have the ability to operate in manual mode, so if something happens to your battery or drive, you pack up and go home. I had my drive die on the second night of the Grand Canyon Star Party a few years ago and was still able to blow the socks off anyone in the field, including showing a guy Markarian's Chain with his own 24" Dob without using his digital setting circles for the first time, and for the entire week. It is an indispensable skill and I guarantee you won't learn it with GOTO.

All it takes is practice and patience. Dark skies help.

I am anti GOTO, unless and until you learn the sky on your own. Or, if you jump right to imaging, which is another story...

I do agree with all you have said AM In my case I think it is simply an age thing. My progression through astronomy started at a time when everything compared to todays digital wizardry, was fairly primitive. I had to make my own useful sized scope from the ground up.

Mirror and all. I scrounged most of the materials I required. My first drive was a worm and wheel scavenged from an old photo developing machine in a scrapyard, and driven with a 12 volt wiper motor. The mount was a crude German Equatorial based on a design out of N.E. Howard's How to Make a Telescope. I always found that wherever I found a part I could use, It was given freely with no charge, as soon as I mentioned what it would be used for, I was bombarded with questions about the universe, what, why,s and wherefores. Very rarely did I find a lack of interest in what I was doing. The enjoyment I have experienced through all the years I have practiced this hobby will stay with me till judgement day.

It has taught me many disciplines, patience, understanding, never pretend to know what you don't know, always listen to the other persons point of view, and Ideas. The learning process is a never ending one. My only regret is I never succeeded in producing many good images on film.

I imaged loads of Saturns Jupiters, Mars, and Lunars, but none were ever brilliant. Of course I never used hypered film, or a cold camera or any of that stuff. I expected to succeed with 100Asa film, and an Olympus SLR.

I am now on the threshold of a new era, where I have equipped myself with what I hope will allow me to produce images like those I have seen on SGL. If I manage to do that I will be a happy man, If I don't, I will still be a happy man, because I will still enjoy what I see here on this site.

And most important of all I will still get a great thrill out of just boarding my telescope spaceship, and take a ride through the universe.

Clear Skies Comrades

Ron.

[Whippy]

As I've mentioned before, and again, I have the locations of well over 100 objects stashed away in my head for basically any night, any time, any scope. It took a number of years to accumulate this data, but I never fail to impress at public star parties. If I don't know where to find something, I use manual setting circles. I find most GOTO scopes do not have the ability to operate in manual mode, so if something happens to your battery or drive, you pack up and go home. I had my drive die on the second night of the Grand Canyon Star Party a few years ago and was still able to blow the socks off anyone in the field, including showing a guy Markarian's Chain with his own 24" Dob without using his digital setting circles for the first time, and for the entire week. It is an indispensable skill and I guarantee you won't learn it with GOTO.

All it takes is practice and patience. Dark skies help.

I am anti GOTO, unless and until you learn the sky on your own. Or, if you jump right to imaging, which is another story...

Fair enough, and you're entitled to your opinion..

Many years ago, I decided I wanted to make music, possibly do it for a living, so with the few pennies I had, I scraped together a real basic setup with even at that time, outdated equipment. I learned the hard way, making up several tricks of my own to copensate for my equipment's limitations. It took me 7 years (and spending most of my spare cash on better gear) to get to the point where my music was of a standard where it could get released on vinyl.

Today, you can spend £150 (or for nothing off of bittorrent if you're that way inclined) and have a complete studio in your PC and it'll do everything for you short of actually composing the music for you (even then you can get self-composing sequencers!). That's technology for you!

Thing is, back then I was for the most part single and I even gave up work for 6 months to concentrate on music! Every minute of my spare time could be used on music (and usually was) if I so chose.

Nowadays, I've got 2 young, energetic boys, a messy wife and a house to look after. I've spent a good few months outside on every available night trying to learn the sky and I've picked up plenty but when all I can locate is NE ojects (and the odd faint one, more by luck probably!) how much more can your enthusiasm take? I thought I could take doing another 'apprenticeship' but with my limited time and other factors, I've admitted defeat and I'll get GOTO'd up. I can still continue to learn the sky, but if I want instant gratification, it's there. All I'm hoping is that my mistake isn't going to prove too expensive.

Sorry Astroman, it's not a rant at you personally but I've got to ask, when you listen to music, are you using an MP3 player, CD player or reel to reel tapes?

[mhc]

Despite looking into/at this stuff on and off for years I'm a rank beginner at learning the skies. ["Maybe you're thick" - Ed]. I wanted to learn the "traditional" way by star hopping, etc. It felt "the right thing to do", and I put that down to the way I was taught to study things "from first principles". Usually works for me, YMMV. But not under light-polluted Manchester skies when my viewing time is strictly limited

I believe that GOTO can aid a beginner. It certainly helped me confirm my suspicions the other night (when using a £110 80GTL), as well as finding things that couldn't be found by the naked eye or (easily) with my bins. I also learned some new targets by using its "tour" facility, and even improved my estimation of angles by trial-and-error tweaking of its slew limits

outlash used his music experiences as a comparison. Can I mention my photographic ones?

I'm a keen photographer. I really know the optical and physical concepts. [Creativity is lacking!]. However, despite having a father-in-law who's a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society ("Shoot lots of rolls"), the biggest boost to my practical skills came when I bought my first digital camera. Not for its "do it all for you" capabilities - they don't help you take good images - but for the immediate feedback. Now I could see the results of putting my theory into practice.

Some people say digital imaging, GOTO, etc is part of the curse of our modern "I want it all, and I want it now" culture. Personally, having studied a bit about human learning processes, I believe that feedback is a major aid to solidifying one's learning experiences. Moreover, the sooner that feedback is received, the greater its impact.

At the end of the day, it's just a tool. The benefit depends on what you're trying to do, how you use it and how much you already know. YMMV

[mhc]

We're ... going to buy a Celestron C8N GT,

Mind me asking how you decided on the C8N GT as opposed to, say, the Skywatcher 200P HEQ5 Pro?

[Whippy]

The Skywatcher is £900, the Celestron is £600! And by what I read, it's pretty much the same scope...

[lunator]

My view here is consistent with the majority here. I beleieve GOTO has a place in this hobby but it is not a way to make the hobby "easy".

I have one GOTO scope the ETX70. I don't tend to use it much but when I have the GOTO has proved useful. I mostly use it with my children and they enjoy prssing the buttons etc. I always make them look at where the scope is pointed so they can see the sky around the target.

My main scopes are both not GOTO. With my key interests in DS work I have to contend with the old saying "One 9th Mag star looks very much like another" so the only way to confirm you are looking in the right star is pattern recognition. I have a planetarium software running on my laptop and compare my view through the eyepiece with the view on the screen. GOTO in this situation is of no real benefit.

There are several DS observers in the States that use CCD's and to them GOTO is indispensible.

I think imaging and GOTO are complementary technologies, but for visual GOTO can be a mixed blessing as it is important to have a 'feel' for the sky and this does come with tracking objects down yourself.

If I move into imaging doubles then I will be getting GOTO but until then I will don't think I will be making that investment.

Cheers

Ian

[mhc]

The Skywatcher is £900, the Celestron is £600! And by what I read, it's pretty much the same scope...

£600 new? Care to share your supplier?! Skywatcher (HEQ5 Pro) would be £815.50 shipped from "Aunty Flo".

[Whippy]

The very same FLO we all know and love and the SGL discount applies . I think these were somewhere in the £850 reigon not so long ago and it they've been reduced by a fair bit. Maybe Celestron have discontinued it and are just clearing the inventory for a new line. I'm going to complain though! An 8" f5 tube on what's essentially an EQ5 with GOTO for 600 notes?

[nitram100]

How i would justify GOTO is by saying that in Britain, our skies are so awful that on a rare night when we do see the stars, you would ideally like to see as many DSO's as possible before the clouds come back, that's where GOTO coems in handy.

[Astroman]

Outlash,

Thanks for your clarification on the non-aimed-rant, but it was still a rant.

If you'd already decided to go GOTO, why post the question at all?

I maintain, you will NOT learn the sky with a GOTO. The human mind is just too lazy, unless you're an exception.

Nitram makes an excellent point for GOTO. Why not be honest and just use that excuse?

[FLO]

Odd, isn't it, the way GOTO polarizes opinion.

For what its worth, I started with GOTO and in hindsight wish I hadn't as my star-hopping skills aren't as good as they should be. That said, my latest mount has GOTO because being a husband, father and self-employed, I find it increasingly difficult to find the time and energy to observe so want to make the most of every session.

All to their own, eh

[Astroman]

There is a member of the Saguaro Astronomy Club that has observed and logged every item on Messier's list, every item on Herschel's lists, every item in the NGC, every object listed in every volume of Burnham's Celestial Handbook, every item on Barnard's dark nebula list and likely everything there is to see up there. He's used several different instruments from large to small and back again. He's written two books on the deep sky and only just last fall did he purchase a GOTO. I thought he deserved it. You know what? He sold it and now has an eq mounted 7" Mak without GOTO.

It's neither here nor there, but that's the way it is. If you enjoy looking for things as much as looking at them, then don't go GOTO. If not, GOTO, by all means. Neither of us is wrong. Please, try not to make it out that way.

[Whippy]

Astroman, I didn't decide to go and get a GOTO when I started this thread. As the title says I wanted some reasons not to get one. I had another 2 hours on sunday night where I was looking for M81/82 and a globular cluster in Cassiopia didn't find any of them. After a long discussion (re: argument) with my wife and then it was decided that a GOTO is the way forward.

I don't like admitting defeat, far from it, but I can honestly see myself just not bothering anymore as I'm just not enjoying the 'thrill of the chase'. Nitram's justification for GOTO is Nitram's and not mine, I've got my own reasons and these are plainly stated in this thread. I will learn the sky, just at my own pace (a quick example: have a look at an object, then move the scope to a different location and then turn the GOTO off and search it out by star-hopping. Is that not a way to learn?) and as I've already said if I want instant gratification and press the 'tour' button, it's right there. If people have the time and patience to learn without any safety net, then all power to them, respect due. But I don't and I'm lucky there's another option out there. I can't join my local AS as my wife works nights, so it's either places like here or books for me.

You've got your opinions and you're entitled to them but you can't tar everybody with the same brush. I'm sure there has been, is and will be plenty of people in my position who get to this point and think to themselves 'is it worth the aggrovation?'. If they all took your advice, I'm pretty certain that astronomy would be an even more minority hobby than it is now. Is that a good thing?

Can we drop this now, as I think we've pretty much covered it.