Guiding question from a curious newbie

[philjamesw]

Hi All,

I am v new to all this and have found this forum to be an invaluable resource. Thus far I am happily viewing with my scope (when it hasn't been cloudy) and have taken some v amateurish (but fun) photos of Orion's Nebula through it with a DSLR.

Out of curiosity if and when you take the next step, does guiding require an EQ mount, or will a GOTO AZT be able to do something similar? I am aware that there are a lot of other things involved, but obviously the mount is critical.

[StevieDvd]

An AltAz will only do short exposures for any longer exposures an EQ mount is needed and for the best and longest images a guided setup.

[Black Knight]

The mount needs either an ST4 port or the means to attach it to a computer in order to use pulse guiding, such as when using EQMod.

[philjamesw]

SO just to clear that up, even though you can control a Skywatcher AZT mount with a laptop you can't auto-guide with it?

[hemihaggis]

you could auto guide it , bit an alt az will suffer from field rotation , an alt az goto mount tracks objects , but does not allow for the rotation of the earth , any objects you photograph will turn over time , about 5 secs less is the max exposure on alt az