Computerised systems. Are they all the same?

[Quacker64]

Last night's star party I attended with the local SAS (Sunderland) my first experience of a dark site and scope views was great fun. I did however notice there are several versions of handsets or software with various mushers.

Meade - auto star, Skywatcher - GOTO and Celestron Nexstar. I presume they all work in a similar fashion and hold similar data, but are any better to use or easier to setup than the others and why? Maybe some has had or currently has use of all systems and might care to comment?

All three advised they were simple to setup by the way.

Steve

[John]

They are all similar but not exactly the same and all have their quirks as well as their strengths. I've tended to avoid Meade GOTO mounts because of too many tales of plastic cogs giving way and other issues. The Meade optical tubes are pretty good though. I've used both the Skywatcher Synscan system and the Celestron Nexstar one and there is not too much to choose between them - both will have their advocates and detractors.

While the initial set up is not over complicated, some care is required. The more accurately the initial alignment is done, the more accurately the GOTO function works. They are not really at the stage, yet, of just dumping them down and using them.

[Blazar]

The newer AVX based mounts and handsets to also offer the All Star Polar Align (ASPA) feature which is quite neat if you wanted to try imaging. as previously noted however both skywatcher and celestron devices are very nice.