Goto mount. Need a finderscope.?

[Joaquin69]

hi.the thing is i own a sw azgti mount paired with a mak 127. It came with a basic red dot finder. Do you think an optical finder would be better ? ?.i have a rigel quickfinder. Should i Use it for aligment stars and turn if off?. Or would i need optical finder to find objects further on?. I might add that accuracy seems to very good with the unit i got. My concern of course is the maks narrow fov

Joaquin

Edited October 3, 2020 by Joaquin69

[Peter Drew]

Some form of finder is necessary to aid GOTO set up, be it reflex or optical,  Optical would be best I think but a well aligned reflex should be adequate.     🙂

[PlankWithANailIn]

I own a AZ GTI and 127 Mak. The Mak is has a small field of view so sometimes goto's will not always put the target in the field of view. So you will need at least a red dot to help with that. I find that most objects I want to see can't be seen with the naked eye in my Bortle 8 area nor any stars near them meaning RDF is useless most of the time.

My solution was to buy a cheap 60mm guide scope and a guide camera and use plate solving in sharp cap to put the target into the field of view. The only remaining issue is focussing the guide scope but it's f4 so can find stars just about anywhere to get rough focus and can be locked down once focus is found and stay in good enough focus forever. Plate solving has taken all of the pain away from GOTO's in heavy light pollution in a garden with restricted fields of view (can't find the stars to do a 3 star alignment). My session startup now is polar align in sharp cap, plate solve to bright star (Vega at the moment), focus mak, check focus on guide camera, go view whatever I can see between the trees and houses (plan to put custom panorama image in stellarium to make working that out easier).

Edited October 3, 2020 by PlankWithANailIn

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

 

16 hours ago, Joaquin69 said:

hi.the thing is i own a sw azgti mount paired with a mak 127. It came with a basic red dot finder. Do you think an optical finder would be better ? ?.i have a rigel quickfinder. Should i Use it for aligment stars and turn if off?. Or would i need optical finder to find objects further on?. I might add that accuracy seems to very good with the unit i got. My concern of course is the maks narrow fov

Joaquin

Initially I stayed with a red dot sight when pairing a 102mm Maksutov with the AZGTI, however after a few sessions and occasional inaccurate gotos, a 6x30 finder was purchased leading to much easier target acquisition without too much of a weight increase.

However, if you're happy with goto accuracy, then I see little point in changing your finder, unless you also, as I do occasionally, use the telescope with a manual mount.

 

Edited October 4, 2020 by ScouseSpaceCadet

[rnobleeddy]

Personally I preferred a RDF as I can work out exactly where in the sky I am.  Obviously YMMV, but I'd expect that the GOTO will be accurate enough to find targets.

[Joaquin69]

Thank you all for your comment. Ihave a bortle 5 sky and i believe i dont need an optical finder so much. (Weight issues aside) .Finding aligment stars is very easy and my knowledge is good enough. The rigel is very light and useful.

Edited October 4, 2020 by Joaquin69