New Mounts

[IF01]

Having received lots of feedback and advice on choosing my first scope I thought I'd throw out some questions about mounts.

My thoughts for a scope are heading down the route of a Mak-Cass scope. I notice many of these are packaged with computerised Altazi mounts. Well I'm not sure at these early stages I want to go down the GoTo type of route. I've just got myself a planisphere and star atlas so I want to plan, explore and find things for myself.

So Altazi or EQ for a beginner who may eventually go down the route of computer drive add ons - which should I be looking at? My philosophy at present is keep it simple and enjoy without too much worry about the technology. That can come later.

[Helen]

Alt Az is so much more intuitive and so easier to use in my opinion, and the eyepiece stays in a comfortable position too. Remember if you buy a scope with goto you don't have to use it - you can find things for yourself - but you have it available if you need it.

Helen

[Peter Drew]

A Dobsonian Newtonian might well be your best bet at this stage, you could easily remount the tube on an equatorial mount in the future for astrophotography.

[rowan46]

If you do get a Mak you are better off with a driven mount as the narrow field of view means you will need to work harder to keep things in view.

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/slt-series/celestron-nexstar-127-slt.html

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/az-goto/skywatcher-skymax-127-synscan-az-goto.html

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/maksutov/skywatcher-skymax-127-supatrak.html

These are obviously the 3 you are looking at. if you are asking is it worth the extra 20 quid to get the goto over the tracking mount I would say yes as to whether you get celestron or skywatcher both are very good in fact they are the same scope with slightly different software. I prefer the celestron software,

[IF01]

I'm hoping that a Mak is a scope I can 'grow' into. I realise that as a beginner it may well be a little challenging at first to find certain objects given the F length of 11.8 (hence the narrow field of view I guess?). I'm thinking that because it will be my first scope I'll be looking for 'easy' viewable objects to start with anyway and as my knowledge grows with the hobby I will get better use from it. What I don't want to do is buy a scope and 6 months down the line think I should have gone for something better. I guess we can all do that though if we have deeper pockets

[yeti monster]

A motorised equitorian mount would be my suggestion, EQs aren't hard to master and once set up a motorised mount will track your object whilst you observe, requiring minor adjustments now and again. Many can be upgraded to goto by changing the handset.