Maybe time for a new setup

[Lee85]

Hey everyone,

 

at the moment I have got a 150pl mounted on a eq3 pro and alot of the time I’m finding myself bending myself into positions that a contortionist couldn’t even get into just too see through the oddly angled eye piece.. I know, I know, I can just loosen it off and swizzle it round but to be honest I really can’t be assed doing it all the time.. So I thought about getting a new setup with a Alt-Azimuth goto mount and a maksutov telescope..

 

I just wanted to know peoples idea on this. Is it worth it? Am I going to lose out in anyway? And if I did decide to swap what’s a decent setup that will give me same/close views to what I get now which I’m very happy with.

 

Many thanks in advance 

 

[knobby]

First question to ask yourself is...

will you ever get into imaging, if yes then persevere with the eq mount.

If not then explore the alt az options.

[Lee85]

yeah i do enjoy imaging. im not great but getting there slowly but surely.   

so how come a alt az isn't recommended for imaging?

Thanks for the reply

[knobby]

For planets alt az will be OK as they are quite bright so take shorter exposure times, for deep space stuff the image needs to be made over a longer time. The idea of your equatorial Mount is that when polar aligned it can attack the arc / rotation of the sky.