questions, lots of them...

[FMA]

Hi, I have a few question.As you can see im bit lost.....If someone would answer me.....

 

1. I f I have a telescope with go to, but im using ipad with skysafari to move it.....is it redundant the goto thing?

2. do you need to polar align a scope and after align to 3 stars every time? can you align just to 3 stars and no polar align? what happens to those which the tree of the neighbour don't allow you to see polaris?

3. its the starsense the only product to align the telescope by itself?

4.if using for visual and go to, why ez its better than equatorial if its the goto moving it for you?

5.to connect ipad to telescope you need a wifi expansion......do the asiair pro include that?

6.if you use skysafari or goto, do you need another small guide scope? I mean. I see people use the big scope and always has a small one with a wide view....but if the goto its taking you to the things, whats the point of the small one?

7.i like the William optics 73 apo. If I buy that one, can I see straight away or need to buy eyepieces?

plenty of doubts as you see......thanks!

 

[Neil H]

Hi I am new myself but will try and help 

I think the mount needs to be polar aligned before you do a 3 star set up this set up helps the go-to work out were it is 

Sky safari not sure about most use stellarium to control there telescopes, if it's a Celestron telescope they do there own called skyportal

As for eyepieces 99% of the time the ones that come with the telescope are rubbish and need to be replaced with plossl or super plossl 

As for mounts I have only used manual EQ mount and you get some very strange angles and you need to spin the telescope in its mount to get the eyepiece in a position to see in to it , the videos I seem the AZ mount the telescope is the right way to look into 

I am sure some will be a long soon to give you all the info  you need

[Physopto]

1 hour ago, FMA said:

Hi, I have a few question.As you can see im bit lost.....If someone would answer me.....

 

1. I f I have a telescope with go to, but im using ipad with skysafari to move it.....is it redundant the goto thing?

2. do you need to polar align a scope and after align to 3 stars every time? can you align just to 3 stars and no polar align? what happens to those which the tree of the neighbour don't allow you to see polaris?

3. its the starsense the only product to align the telescope by itself?

4.if using for visual and go to, why ez its better than equatorial if its the goto moving it for you?

5.to connect ipad to telescope you need a wifi expansion......do the asiair pro include that?

6.if you use skysafari or goto, do you need another small guide scope? I mean. I see people use the big scope and always has a small one with a wide view....but if the goto its taking you to the things, whats the point of the small one?

7.i like the William optics 73 apo. If I buy that one, can I see straight away or need to buy eyepieces?

plenty of doubts as you see......thanks!

 

Hi FMA,  you do not say what telescope you have or are thinking of getting, that would help us to help you. I know you mentioned the William Optics but there are so many scopes to choose from. DO NOT RUSH IT, I took many months and still changed my mind after the initial purchase, It happens!.....

If it is a GOTO scope you still need to Polar Align. You can use a Red Dot Finder or a small Finder Scope to initially  rough align the scope to the Celestial Pole. I am assuming you are in the Northern Hemisphere, or else it will be the Southern Pole. (Note you have to align the finder device with the scope before doing the rough alignment to the pole, you do this aiming at a local but distant object and get both the scope and alignment device to point at the same object.)

After rough alignment you can do either a 1,2 or 3 star alignment  depending upon scope mount make and accuracy needed.

I can't advise on StarSense, or Ipad, as never used either. Ipad or computer do not eradicate the need for a good polar alignment.

Derek

[Cosmic Geoff]

22 hours ago, FMA said:

Hi, I have a few question.As you can see im bit lost.....If someone would answer me.....

 

1. I f I have a telescope with go to, but im using ipad with skysafari to move it.....is it redundant the goto thing?

2. do you need to polar align a scope and after align to 3 stars every time? can you align just to 3 stars and no polar align? what happens to those which the tree of the neighbour don't allow you to see polaris?

3. its the starsense the only product to align the telescope by itself?

4.if using for visual and go to, why ez its better than equatorial if its the goto moving it for you?

5.to connect ipad to telescope you need a wifi expansion......do the asiair pro include that?

6.if you use skysafari or goto, do you need another small guide scope? I mean. I see people use the big scope and always has a small one with a wide view....but if the goto its taking you to the things, whats the point of the small one?

7.i like the William optics 73 apo. If I buy that one, can I see straight away or need to buy eyepieces?

plenty of doubts as you see......thanks!

 

1: Skysafari etc will not make the GoTo redundant. You still have to use the GoTo setup though you may be able to dispense with the GoTo handset.

2: You do not need to polar align a GoTo mount unless it is the equatorial variety.  You do not need three stars to align - you can align on 1 or 2 stars or 1 planet though this is less accurate.

3: No.

4:  I don't know what you mean.  For visual use, equatorial GoTo is an unnecessary encumbrance compared with alt-azimuth.

5: No idea.

6: A GoTo mount always needs a finder for initial setup. Often a cheap red dot finder will suffice, as you will not be using it during the viewing session.  Guide scope? Are you talking astrophotography? That is a totally different ballgame.

7: No idea. Most vendors supply one eyepiece with an OTA (bare telescope), then you have to buy a set of eyepieces yourself.

[vlaiv]

On 13/02/2020 at 11:53, FMA said:

Hi, I have a few question.As you can see im bit lost.....If someone would answer me.....

 

1. I f I have a telescope with go to, but im using ipad with skysafari to move it.....is it redundant the goto thing?

2. do you need to polar align a scope and after align to 3 stars every time? can you align just to 3 stars and no polar align? what happens to those which the tree of the neighbour don't allow you to see polaris?

3. its the starsense the only product to align the telescope by itself?

4.if using for visual and go to, why ez its better than equatorial if its the goto moving it for you?

5.to connect ipad to telescope you need a wifi expansion......do the asiair pro include that?

6.if you use skysafari or goto, do you need another small guide scope? I mean. I see people use the big scope and always has a small one with a wide view....but if the goto its taking you to the things, whats the point of the small one?

7.i like the William optics 73 apo. If I buy that one, can I see straight away or need to buy eyepieces?

plenty of doubts as you see......thanks!

 

Let me try

1. No, ipad and skysafari and such use goto system of the telescope mount to move telescope around. Only thing that SkySafari and other applications do is tell the telescope - move to XY position. Telescope goto system then does that. Like it has been mentioned before - it is same thing that handset does - you press a button and telescope moves. Mind you, "brains" of the goto system are sometimes inside hand controller - so SkySafari won't always replace hand controller. Your mount needs to have Wifi capability for this to work - either inbuilt or as add-on

2. Only equatorial mounts need polar alignment, alt-az mounts don't need one. 2star or 3star alignment procedure is used to tell your goto system where stars are and where telescope is pointing. Polar alignment is procedure of setting up equatorial mount, regardless if you have goto or not. So I guess proper answer would be: You need to polar align if you have EQ type mount. You need to star align if you have goto mount. These operations will be performed each time you set up the scope for use - if you don't move scope and it is polar aligned - no need to do it again. If you turn off and then turn on your goto system - you will need to do star align to tell it where it is pointing and where things are (this might not be so on very expensive permanently mounted systems that have encoders and can remember all the things between power cycles).

3. Not really sure. In self contained package - probably yes. In principle of operation - certainly not. There are a lot of systems that are capable of building pointing model via plate solving but need camera attached to telescope and computer to do it.

4. Depends on the type of the scope you are using:

- as discussed EQ needs to be polar aligned to work properly, so there is additional step involved in setting it up

- with EQ mount telescope rotates, so you will need to often rotate eyepiece to get it into comfortable viewing position - this is so for refractors and catadioptric telescopes. Newtonian telescopes don't have this ability to rotate diagonal prism and change EP orientation - which means either you will need to rotate whole telescope to get eyepiece in comfortable position, or there will be some "gymnastics" involved when observing. There is however way to mount your newtonian telescope on EQ mount as to minimize effort when looking at the eyepiece.

5. Asiair is not something that you want to use for visual. It is accessory built for imaging and it's purpose is to provide you wifi connection between your equipment and computer/laptop/tablet - so you can use tablet for controlling mount and camera and whole imaging process.

If you want to enable Wifi on a mount that does not have it by default - you need wifi dongle for that particular mount, something like this:

This is Skywatcher Synscan wifi module and it is used with Skywatcher mounts

6. You will almost always want to have "small scope" - which is called finder scope. Even if goto will take you where you want, you still need finder scope for process of star align at the beginning. Point of the small scope is to provide you with very small magnification of the sky (some finders like red dot finder and rigel don't have magnification at all). Main telescope can provide so much magnification that you simply can't see star that you are trying to align to in your eyepiece - more magnification you have less sky you see at the same time. You can sometimes get away with not using finder scope - if you for example have short focal length wide field telescope and long focal length eyepiece - such combination can give you x10-x15 magnification range which is not that bad in comparison to around x7 that regular finders give you.

7. Most likely you will need to by additional accessories to start observing. Telescopes like WO73 are sold as OTA - Optical Telescope Assembly or in plain language - telescope tube only. You will need at least eyepiece or two, preferably diagonal mirror so you don't twist your neck and mount to place telescope on - then you will be able to start observing.

In the end:

Why don't you give us some information, like what you want in a telescope, what is your budget - rough figure is enough, so we can help with recommendations.

[ollypenrice]

Vlaiv has it nailed for you.

Regarding your question 4, as well as the extra step of having to polar align an German EQ mount, you have the added complication of the 'meridian flip.' An EQ mount has counterwieghts one side and the scope the other. Once it tracks to the meridian, or shortly afterwards, it will have to swap sides by doing a 180 rotation on both axes. It is a time consuming palaver you don't need except for long exposure photography. An EQ mount will also put the eyepiece at a greater range of heights than will an EQ. Moving just side to side and up and down a tracking alt-az mount behaves in a more logical way and will provide better Go-To accuracy in most cases because the 'flip' requires both good polar alignment and more accuracy in the star alignment and mechanics of the mount.

Don't turn visual observing into a computer exercise...

Olly

 

[FMA]

woooow, thank you very much to all of you.....

[FMA]

Basically I was thinking to get the skywatcher eq 5gt. The one that has ez and equatorial. Why?

I have a telescope, bit of a toy, but enough to see decently the moon. So id like to begin to learn how the mount work, the goto think, change from one mode to another.....so focusing in the use of th emount

 I already own a canon with a 70-200L, so I can begin to take some photos( I own photoshop and a mac pro). The moment a I realize what Im using more, visual with kids, or taking photos, id get the OTA( was thinking the zenitsstar 73, but im opened to other things, even second hand.

I really have a good time with kid and skysafari looking the stars( with binoculars and the toy telescope) and learning some from them, but I think the goto would open a new world to us.....

and because I just want to buy once , I think this mount is ideal as open both worlds.....

 

 

[ollypenrice]

31 minutes ago, FMA said:

Basically I was thinking to get the skywatcher eq 5gt. The one that has ez and equatorial. Why?

 

Because Alt Az is nicer for visual and EQ is better for long exposure astrophotography.

Olly