Can a goto motor be bought separately?

[NIGHTBOY]

I have a skyliner 200p dob and I was just wondering if the goto motor and base could be bought separately from the scope??

[rowan46]

not as far as I know if you need goto for that you will need to put rings on it and put it on an eq5 at least. better would be a heq5 for visual only or eq6 if you wish to image with it

[NIGHTBOY]

Ahh ok. What about a tracker motor??

[JamesF]

I think someone asked this recently and whilst I've never seen conversion kits for sale in the UK that I recall, I think it is possible to get the GOTO kit for a dob elsewhere, but they're not cheap.

Motorised equatorial wedges certainly available, but it may well be cheaper to buy a new scope  I can't recommend any particular model myself.  My dob is entirely manual.

James

[JamesF]

Here's an example: http://www.ozscopes.com.au/skywatcher-8-dobsonian-upgrade-kit-for-goto.html

James

[NIGHTBOY]

Yes I see, thanks james.  What about some sort of gps box jobby that tells you where to point your manual scope??

[bingevader]

John (moderator) added tracking to his dob, the thread is here.

Cheers

[NIGHTBOY]

My my there is some work involved in that!!! As you can get gps scopes that know where to look, is there a gps box you can get that tells you where to point the scope??

[Cornelius Varley]

Yes I see, thanks james.  What about some sort of gps box jobby that tells you where to point your manual scope??

There are a number of options :

1.  Mount a mobile phone running a planetarium program (Google Sky Map etc) on top the mount

2.  Use a Wixey digital angle gauge mounted on the telescope and mark out the dob base in degrees.- use a laptop planetarium program to find the alt az coordinates.

3   Digital setting circles.- more expensive the the other options

[Pig]

Yes I see, thanks james.  What about some sort of gps box jobby that tells you where to point your manual scope??

You can get the " Mobile observatory App" for your phone/tablet but I wouldn't bank on its accuracy over such large distances  However  it could be used as a guide

[66mikeg]

+1 for Cornelius's suggestions "syeye" app for androids is quite accurate