Should I or shouldn't I ?

[LukeSkywatcher]

I've been observing since i was about 7 yrs old with Bins. I only bought my 1st scope in Nov 2007 (90mm refrac on an EQ mount). Then i upgraded to a 130mm Heritage scope on a Dob mount a couple of yrs later.

It was only less then 1 yr ago that i pushed the boat out and upgraded to an 8" (200mm) Go-To SCT.

To this day, i hardly ever use the Go-To scope to its full ability. I still use it as if it was a manual scope (old habits die hard).

I guess what i am saying is that Go-To is a luxury that none of us REALLY need, simply because we all have the ability to use manual scopes and find what we want................with a bit of general understanding of the night sky.

Nothing wrong with Go-To.............its NOT cheating. For me, it takes the fun out of the hunt.................but it allows me to see more in the short run then i possibly could have ever seen over the long run.

You can have and use Go-To, and still have a good grasp of the night sky from books etc.

My 30+ yrs of manual observing allow me to take a walk at night and i can look upwards and i know exactly where and what i am looking at.

I love that aspect of learning "the hard way" (books,charts,bins). I dont need technology to tell me what i am looking at.

Summary: buy a Go-To scope or dont. Either way, a basic understanding of the night sky will serve you well and is actually essential even with Go-To, because you need to do a 1,2,3 star align for it to work.