Dobsonian Auto guiding?

[Kevdan]

Hi all,

may be a daft question but can you autoguide with a dob? and if not then how good is the tracking on a goto dob like the skywatcher skyliner range ?

Only reason im asking is i got my mind set on a 250 pds with neq6 but if the dob can auto guide then it would be a cheaper alternative.

Kev.

[themos]

The Dob is on an Alt/Az mount (up down, left right) and so even if you could rig it up with motors and autoguide it, you will still see field rotation in a long exposure image that will not let you shoot for more than seconds.

[brantuk]

Yup - it's not about wether it has motors or guiding at all - it's about the way the Earth moves relative to the stars. The only mount that moves in synch permitting long exposures (for dso imaging) is equatorial because it can be polar aligned. You add guiding to improve the accuracy required for snapping stuff millions of light years away.

A motor driven alt az mount will however be fine for short exposures on planets only a few hundreds of millions of miles away

[Kevdan]

Thanks Guys,

Well thats another reason to get the NEQ6.

Kev.