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Worth adding Go-to to a small scope?


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I've had a SW Heritage 114p since November and have enjoyed lunar and planetary observing (weather permitting). My sky isn't dark enough so DSOs aren't really a viable target, so I'd not got round to adding a WiFi adapter to the Virtuoso Mount.

But I've got a week away at a relatively dark sky area and am tempted to add the Go-to function, but I'm not sure whether (even if I'm lucky with the weather) my score is capable of showing much. Any thoughts on what my 114mm mini dobbson is likely to show (factoring in that during summer in Scotland it's never truly dark). 

I don't want to throw £60 at the adapter and find it's of limited use.

Thanks in advance,

David

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I used my SLT GoTo extensively for looking at double stars with my 127mm Mak.  Some open clusters and planetary nebulae and globular clusters should also be within the range of your instrument.  Also you should be able to find planets (e.g. Venus & Mercury) in daylight if you can do a 'solar system align'.

From a dark skies area you should be able to bag some of the brighter galaxies, e.g M81, M82.  My 102mm achromat +GoTo bagged  dozens of galaxies at a dark skies site.

If any of these appeal to you, you could give the GoTo a try.

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When targets are faint, goto can be useful to KNOW that you are on the target at least, to then use other techniques like averted vision or tapping the tube to help spot the DSO.

You should be able to pick up all of the visible globulars, and  most of the Messier galaxies that are high enough, along with a host of NGC star clusters in Cass. 

I use this star map book as it tells you what size scope you need for a given target

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/interstellarum-deep-sky-atlas-desk-edition.html

Combined with GOTO, it is a very powerful resource

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Thanks for the great answers - exactly what I was looking for.   I'll have a look at Stellarium to see what's likely to be visible from my location when I'm there and I'll get the wifi adapter ordered. 

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2 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

Also you should be able to find planets (e.g. Venus & Mercury) in daylight if you can do a 'solar system align'.

Please be VERY careful if you are going to look for Venus and especially Mercury during the day. Looking into the Sun through your 'scope, even for a split second will cause serious damage to your eye or even blindness.

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With my Celestron SE goto mount I do a solar system align on the sun with a solar filter fitted to the scope to align it up correctly on the sun. Once aligned I then select Venus, and once it’s slewed to Venus I then take off the solar filter to enable viewing of Venus, which is normally well placed in the FOV to to center it and view.

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Oh yes. You can most definitely image deep sky objects, such as nebulae, with a small 60mm refractor and the results are indeed prominent. The rest just depends on seeing conditions, camera and how good you edit. Very worth it. I use a 90mm Maksutov, as my small 'scope. 

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