Newb who is big fan of Dob mounts having trouble with mechanical mounts..

[HiveIndustries]

I have a 4" Dob that I got started in the hobby (Orion Skyscanner 100) very casually. Years of like, "hey I know that's Jupiter, let me point this at it!" I've added on a 4.5mm eyepiece and a 2X Barlow over time, I never even got the red dot finder fixed because it's so easy to just move the scope around and find the target you're going for. I'm that much of a newb. I kind of almost wear it as a badge of honor even though it's ignorant.

Fast forward to today and I picked up a slightly older, used Celestron C8 with a GoTo mount. Last night was my first time with it and what fuss! I can't get into the neighborhood of say something easy like Jupiter and just spiral around until I find it, the adjustments always come with shakiness and jerkiness even when you try and dial in the softer movements. Finding Jupiter and Saturn easily takes me 5x longer when "fishing" and not using the scope or "GoTo feature."

Am I always going to have to align and use the motoroized mount to find things? Is this something I just need to get used to doing?

I'm half tempted to sell the mount setup and get something manual and actually train myself to find things in the finder scope.

At this point in my hobby I'm way more interested in visual than I am AP. Am I just wasting time money and frustrating trying to get these auto things to work? Or just settle down and get used to the motorized stuff and it'll work out over time when I'm used to it?

Thanks all!

 

 

[banjaxed]

As you are only interested in visual astronomy my advice would be to use an AZ mount that has slow motion controls which makes viewing much easier IMO. I have tried most methods and my favourite scopes for easy viewing are my200P Dob and my Skywatcher ST120 on a AZ5 Mount with stainless steel tripod. Good luck with your quest.

[Starwatcher2001]

I've got a dob and an SCT, not unlike yours. The dob's great fun, more relaxed, and teaches to navigate the sky better, but the goto is a lot more efficient if you want to find more objects in a shorter time. But the goto takes a bit more getting used to, and needs aligning each time you use it.  Your Orion scope (which looks like an f/4) has a much bigger field of view than the Celestron, meaning you'll see more sky and find it easier to navigate by eye. 

If you don't want to use the goto facilities of the Celestron, make sure you've got a good (and aligned) finder, or at least a low power eyepiece (32mm or so). This will be true regardless of the type of manual mount you go for.

Although I'm reasonably familiar with the night sky, I like using goto to find an object, and then use the handset control to wander around the vicinity looking for other cool objects nearby.

Edit: Sorry, I meant to welcome you aboard SGL too. Good to have you with us.

Edited October 8, 2021 by Starwatcher2001

[Dave scutt]

My only scope is an 12"skywatcher dob  I find nothing better than to try and find objects and get that wow factor when I find something I've never seen before.  I did have a goto aswell but a like the dob much better 

[HiveIndustries]

5 minutes ago, Dave scutt said:

My only scope is an 12"skywatcher dob  I find nothing better than to try and find objects and get that wow factor when I find something I've never seen before.  I did have a goto aswell but a like the dob much better 

I think at this stage of my hobbying I'm very similar in what I enjoy. The problem is I live in the lights at the outskirts of NYC so I plan to travel for darkness and my cars are small (+family/dog!).

Trying to get around a 12" Dob to a dark sight I felt like would be incredibly prohibitive. Maybe if you engineer a rocket cone for one side and mount it to the roof of the car and have the mount itself transform into a dog crate?

The C8 just seemed like the absolute best next step for me and probably is and I need to stop being a baby about the mount. Googling around it seems like most people are like, "Why would you want to not have a GoTo mount on a C8?" So I should probably at least spend enough time with it to understand why they're saying that.

I got home with the scope and had like 30 minutes of daylight before my first light with it so I really need time with for everything from dialing in the finder to collumation to cleaning it. I was expecting it to not be ready but I wasn't expecting the mount to be such an encumbrance to "pointing and going"

Friggin planets looked incredible even under my skies over the 100mm though! WOO!

[Cosmic Geoff]

I bought a C8 SE because it had a GoTo mount.  But each to their own...🙂

If you just want to look at Jupiter you can simplify things by using the Solar System Align with Jupiter as the target aligning object. 

[HiveIndustries]

45 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

I bought a C8 SE because it had a GoTo mount.  But each to their own...🙂

If you just want to look at Jupiter you can simplify things by using the Solar System Align with Jupiter as the target aligning object. 

 

lol I don't know about "want" but when you live again in the lights of NYC, you kind of limit yourself to bright things. You can see a lot with a 4" Dob here considering the conditions and price point but I've been eyeballing M45 since a very young child, such an odd cluster that you can make out... resolves to just stars.

I want more than just what I've been limited to, ultimately. Things like Jupiter and Saturn are things I cling to because they're among the only things I can resolve. Not that I'm knocking observing planets, it's just not something I want to come on and say I'm all about as that focus was really just about limitations so far.

My in-laws are from parts like rural PA and WY and such so visiting them just got 1,000x more interesting. "Who wants to visit Gram?!"

Honestly the jerky/shaky/response thing is annoying but it's definitely workable. I'll spend today getting it all up to speed and hope the clouds clear (ugh like every dang day in the forecast) and I'm sure once I'm able to actually align and use it as intended I'll accept the trade-off of satisfaction of moving the tube with my hand.

[Cosmic Geoff]

10 minutes ago, HiveIndustries said:

lol I don't know about "want" but when you live again in the lights of NYC, you kind of limit yourself to bright things.

An 8" with GoTo will pull a lot of objects out of the murk in those conditions.  And if you visit the sticks you may be amazed at what the 8" GoTo will find out there that can't be seen in the city.

[Louis D]

1 hour ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

If you just want to look at Jupiter you can simplify things by using the Solar System Align with Jupiter as the target aligning object. 

I could see that being useful for the OP based on living near NYC years ago.  You literally can't see most stars on most clear nights to align on if you wanted to.  The moon and brightest planets are about all that you can see without magnification.  When I moved to Texas nearly 30 years ago, I was amazed to see a plethora of stars again as from my childhood days growing up in the upper Midwest.  That's when I decided to get into amateur astronomy.

[HiveIndustries]

On 08/10/2021 at 11:00, Louis D said:

I could see that being useful for the OP based on living near NYC years ago.  You literally can't see most stars on most clear nights to align on if you wanted to.  The moon and brightest planets are about all that you can see without magnification.  When I moved to Texas nearly 30 years ago, I was amazed to see a plethora of stars again as from my childhood days growing up in the upper Midwest.  That's when I decided to get into amateur astronomy.

Exactly this, I probably have about 2 dozen visible stars. I was really shocked at how well the planets resolved in fact, I would have thought there would be way more atmospheric heat (there's some).

I knew it'd be bad, I didn't know Jupiter and Saturn would be almost like being at a dark site good though.

Two nights ago I looked at Orion in my 100mm and it was the faintest of smudges. Was kind of excited at the smudge though!

[Starwatcher2001]

What do you think of the Moon? That's visible from almost anywhere and can provide a lifetime of pleasure on it's own. You can see craters, craters in craters, ridges, mountains, rilles, "seas", all of which look different and reveal different aspects at different times of the month.

Double stars are also a good target in poor skies, and is when your goto will really come in handy.

[HiveIndustries]

1 minute ago, Starwatcher2001 said:

What do you think of the Moon? That's visible from almost anywhere and can provide a lifetime of pleasure on it's own. You can see craters, craters in craters, ridges, mountains, rilles, "seas", all of which look different and reveal different aspects at different times of the month.

Double stars are also a good target in poor skies, and is when your goto will really come in handy.

 

Honestly both of those things are what I spend my time doing. The stars that are visible here often resolve to double so on some level it's like a newb-filter for interesting things to look at

I'm seriously not complaining about my skies. I'm grateful for having found the hobby to begin with under them and am shocked at how well the Orion Skyscanner 100mm does at getting them. With everyones dusty scopes you see, you'd think there was nothing to see at all.

As I keep saying the biggest surprise was how observable the 5 planets are.

My sister-in-law is Bortle 2, my friend's vacation house is Bortle 3, my mother-in-law is Bortle 3, I'm going to have a lot of privileged access in my life to the sky so I try and keep it in perspective.