Wish I had GOTO

[Peco4321]

I guess everyone at some stage reaches the point when the romanticism of searching for objects and the delight in finding them, is overtaken by the frustration of wasted hours of scarce clear sky time and just wishing you had a good GOTO system. Well, I think I'm there, I still love finding things, but hate wasted sessions where I feel it was a total loss and I saw nothing (last night ?).  I'm one year in now and I'm looking at used GOTO stuff all the time now, saying to myself "if I'd not bought the RA and DEC motors, or that ep or that book or that battery pack, and I sold my mount and tripod, I'd be half way there. Hey ho, I could have a great night tonight and forget all this ?

[wookie1965]

I loved searching for stuff best thing is to make a list maybe in one or two constellations and have good maps. I have only recently gone to goto which was forced on me for medical reasons I have seen quite a few more objects but finding them myself helped me learn the sky. 

[Peco4321]

Totally agree about learning the sky, I love the knowledge I have built up as to where stuff should be, just can't always find it. 

[mikeyj1]

Lol, i had the same scope and did the same to the mount...then bought a goto...or two... and just bought another EQ5 with motors...  Why you may ask..?

Well Goto takes a time to setup (at least an EQ does).  It still doesn't find everything, and then you spend more time on alignment.  not easy to just loosen the clutches and more around, you have to slew (slowly!).  You are always thinking about power and batteries!   

My EQ3-2 just needed facing north (after setting the Lat once for the garden), and i was off.  The EQ5 is much the same, but can autoguide if i really want to.. and learn more about the sky.

..but dont let me put you off..  i also love my goto   and for astrophotography, its much easier to find a star to focus on then slew back to the fuzzy you cant see with your eyes ;-)

Mike

[Knighty2112]

Don't want to rub it in but I went Goto a while ago and is now my main route for observing, except when I need a long 'frac out to do some lunar, planetary or tight double star observing. Even in modest scopes it is surprising what you can see, and unless your a whiz at star hoping, would take you way too long to find normally. Now with the C8 on the Nexstar 6/8 SE Goto mount I can quite easily spot other DSO's that where hard to track down also, even from my LP polluted skies! If you can save the pennies I would say get one, either new or second hand. 

[nightfisher]

I have to admit that after more than 20 years of manual, i am getting a little goto mount for my 102 Maksutov, a couple of years back i bought a Celestron 8SE mount, and have to confess i never used it, kinda wish i had kept it rather than selling it

[popeye85]

I started out with a goto and now have  manual and I must say I much prefer the manual ( Although I do admit that tracking would be useful!). I defo have found that 'the hunt' is part of the fun and I thnk I would get bored without that aspect. goto is too easy in my view!

[Timebandit]

 

I consider a goto a non essential item. You should first learn the sky which IMO is half the fun of the hobby. If you just set up a goto then yes you may find targets but your actual knowledge of the sky is basically non existence . 

I consider a goto system a later add on if needed. I would much rather put my money into aperture  and optics to get great viewing of targets . Rather than ploughing many hundreds into the electrics and motors of a scope, that may find the item(if it's set up correctly, which takes valuable time) . But the views may be lack luster as the aperture and optics have been sacrificed,as the money has been spent on the goto system.

IMO spend the money on aperture and optics first. And at a later date then possibly consider goto if you really need it. But find a good star map and enjoy the locating the targets yourself, a lot more rewarding and so much cheaper 

 

[popeye85]

24 minutes ago, Timebandit said:

 

I consider a goto system a later add on if needed.

I completely agree however I don't thin that It can be argued that with out goto the're are a very high number of beginners that would have just given up he hobby out of pure frustration at not finding targets.

[Pondus]

Bought a secondhand Orionxt8i  'push to' .  I bought it cause of the bigger Mirror than the Heritage, and not because of  the intelliscope part.

Anyways : Havent used the push to Technology for almost Three years, I move the Scope around too much during a session (and loose alignment).

If I bought a GOTO, it would have been because of the tracking of Objects at higher power, not finding them in the first place.

 

Rune

 

[Chris]

Hahah! I'm getting my advert up for "EQ3 motor drive kit wanted", for some reason I feel now might be the right time to advertise for one  

I

[cloudsweeper]

GoTo is great - plus there's the tracking.  Saves a lot of time.  I still like the hunt though, and do that with the manual frac.  I think you learn the sky whichever way you do it - atlases and Stellarium and the heavens above are always in view!

Doug.

[Peco4321]

I doubt my wife would allow "yet" more spending on my obses..., wait, hobby @Chris Lock, but I wonder how much I'd..., stop, no I'm not upgrading yet. Ha ha. 

It will have to sit in my wish list basket for some time  you can always dream  

 

[newbie alert]

You can still have bad nights with a goto.. I decided to change to coordinates in my handset as my new app told me it differed slightly..wasnt until I started to do my star alignment that it was pointing in the wrong area of the sky that it proved the app was wrong so now uninstalled and handset returned to original settings..

[Knighty2112]

What scope do you intend to use for the any Goto mount you get? I used a Celestron 4SE Mak on a Skywatcher Stardiscovery Goto mount which actually enabled me to see a lot more things, even if the view wasn't as bright as with any larger scopes. I think it actually helps in light polluted areas to be able to see some of the fainter DS0 which when star hoping you may not initially see. 

[Chris]

11 minutes ago, Peco4321 said:

I doubt my wife would allow "yet" more spending on my obses..., wait, hobby @Chris Lock, but I wonder how much I'd..., stop, no I'm not upgrading yet. Ha ha. 

It will have to sit in my wish list basket for some time  you can always dream  

 

You'll have it one day mate, and in the mean time it's always fun to have something to work towards getting I find  I was literally about to place an ad for a motor kit when I saw you thread, thus the irony when I clocked your eq3 with drives. Couldn't resist a little poke, sorry  

On a positive note, you have 90% power left on your media device/phone! 

[Peco4321]

12 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

 

What scope do you intend to use

 

All just a bit of a pipe dream at the moment, just wondered how others got into the GOTO part of this hobby, when and why etc, and thoughts. I do really enjoy the whole research side of things, so important as sometimes the actual view could be underwhelming. Then the hunt,?and I know when I do find the objects I was looking for, I'll feel even more fulfilled. 

[wookie1965]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10158469801105014&set=pcb.823397081150826&type=3&theater

http://www.astrobuysell.com/uk/propview.php?view=125531

http://www.astrobuysell.com/uk/propview.php?view=125410

[DaveS]

I couldn't be without GOTO, imaging time is too precious to waste faffing around. Even when I only had the HEQ5 on a tripod it made a huge difference. Now my mount is on a pier I can put the target bang in the middle of the field.

I have done my time finding objects by eye and setting circles with an undriven eq mount.

[Astro Imp]

I started with a 150P on a manual EQ3-2 and really enjoyed the experience but decided for visual the faffing around with a Newtonian on an equatorial mount was getting frustrating. 

A little over a year ago the boss gave the OK for me to spend on the GOTO Dob. in my signature. I kept putting it off as it seemed a lot of money to spend on the hobby and eventually brought it January this year. The poor weather has restricted my use but from the experience so far I 'm glad I made the decision and sorry I didn't commit earlier.

From what I have found the alignment is a five minute job and if carried out carefully produces very good GOTO results.

FWIW the first night I used the GOTO I viewed about 20 objects which is considerably more than I ever did manually in a single evening.

With this scope it is possible to push the OTA to the approximate position and then home in using GOTO. To do this my sky knowledge picked up with the 150P has been very helpful.

[wookie1965]

1 minute ago, Astro Imp said:

I started with a 150P on a manual EQ3-2 and really enjoyed the experience but decided for visual the faffing around with a Newtonian on an equatorial mount was getting frustrating. 

A little over a year ago the boss gave the OK for me to spend on the GOTO Dob. in my signature. I kept putting it off as it seemed a lot of money to spend on the hobby and eventually brought it January this year. The poor weather has restricted my use but from the experience so far I 'm glad I made the decision and sorry I didn't commit earlier.

From what I have found the alignment is a five minute job and if carried out carefully produces very good GOTO results.

FWIW the first night I used the GOTO I viewed about 20 objects which is considerably more than I ever did manually in a single evening.

With this scope it is possible to push the OTA to the approximate position and then home in using GOTO. To do this my sky knowledge picked up with the 150P has been very helpful.

I started with exact same set up its only this year i have got a goto mount. Saying that I bought a lemon its just a good job two friends on here have fixed it the second engineering it better than original.

[Paz]

I've only a few years under my belt but at the moment I'm still enjoying finding things manually. I can see how preferences can change over time so I would never rule goto out but in addition to finding it fun to hunt things down I also find I enjoy sessions more when I pick only a few targets and really focus on them. I think manual finding probably helps me to be disciplined and not go for too many targets in one session.

I do like tracking however and have an eq platform for the vx14 and have recently bought drives and a controller for the eq5. I think an adjustable chair and tracking are great investments as these things make it much easier to relax and really look properly.

[ejp1684]

I'm very pleased with my Evolution 8 used with SkySafari 5 Plus. I learn a lot each session. I look for interesting objects which I can view from the back garden; the house, flats opposite and trees constrict the view to about a third of the sky. I'll often use the 'Tonight's Best' list if I haven't had time to plan what to look at. I use the information section on SkySafari to learn about the object, and when I've finished looking at it I then take time to memorise the constellation it's in. This allows me to build up my knowledge of the night sky. Clear skies are a luxury here, so I like to make the most of each session, and a GoTo system certainly does that. I can set up the scope in about ten minutes and straight into observing. I tried using the hand controller once, but much prefer SkySafari for the information it gives.

Eric.

[Knighty2112]

18 minutes ago, ejp1684 said:

I'm very pleased with my Evolution 8 used with SkySafari 5 Plus. I learn a lot each session. I look for interesting objects which I can view from the back garden; the house, flats opposite and trees constrict the view to about a third of the sky. I'll often use the 'Tonight's Best' list if I haven't had time to plan what to look at. I use the information section on SkySafari to learn about the object, and when I've finished looking at it I then take time to memorise the constellation it's in. This allows me to build up my knowledge of the night sky. Clear skies are a luxury here, so I like to make the most of each session, and a GoTo system certainly does that. I can set up the scope in about ten minutes and straight into observing. I tried using the hand controller once, but much prefer SkySafari for the information it gives.

Eric.

Yep! I use my Nexstar 6/8SE got mount with Skyportal and connect up via Skysafari too. Certainly much easier than using the hand controller to select objects to view.

[Chris]

33 minutes ago, ejp1684 said:

I'm very pleased with my Evolution 8 used with SkySafari 5 Plus. I learn a lot each session. I look for interesting objects which I can view from the back garden; the house, flats opposite and trees constrict the view to about a third of the sky. I'll often use the 'Tonight's Best' list if I haven't had time to plan what to look at. I use the information section on SkySafari to learn about the object, and when I've finished looking at it I then take time to memorise the constellation it's in. This allows me to build up my knowledge of the night sky. Clear skies are a luxury here, so I like to make the most of each session, and a GoTo system certainly does that. I can set up the scope in about ten minutes and straight into observing. I tried using the hand controller once, but much prefer SkySafari for the information it gives.

Eric.

 

12 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Yep! I use my Nexstar 6/8SE got mount with Skyportal and connect up via Skysafari too. Certainly much easier than using the hand controller to select objects to view.

I've gone back and fourth between goto and manual/driven mounts over the years, but more recently I haven't been that bothered about Goto since having Skysafari 5 on my phone (I was a bit late to the smart phone party!) 

My current digs have a restricted view of the sky in most direction, similar to Eric by the sounds of things, so all I tend to do know day's is point my phone at a part of the sky I can actually see, zoom in on an object of interest, then simply point my scope in that direction and sweep around locally for the the object until i find it.

This works really well, so I can see the benefit of a phone/tablet app over the old hand controller. It might be contraversial to say, but I think maybe the hand controller might become a thing of the past pretty soon