Can Anyone Explain A Goto For Me

[charmedkelly]

hi there can any explain a goto and if its a usefull telescope to have?

and are there any good ones out there? with a budget of say £500

im saving as from today shud take me approx 3 months

Kelly

[Jamie]

Kelly

Goto is basically a telescope mount that has a small computer onboard. This computer has a database of names and coordinates of many celestial objects.

Once you have alined and set up the said mount correctly its just a matter of keying in the name or coordinates of night sky objects and the scope will move automatically to the object you keyed in to the hand controller.

Great and invaluable if you don't know your way about the night sky.

As for where to get one within your budget, i am sure someone will be along to let you know of the best places to buy from.......

[NickH]

The little SLT Celestrons or Meade ETX's are probably the two most popular ways of getting in to GOTO. Used both, had both...both have good and bad points, but try them out at a local club or somewhere like Astrofest if you can

[peeceeTal2M]

Goto mounts will automatically point to a chosen star, planet, nebula, you can observe these objects without having to "find" them yourself just by selecting them from the hand set menu. The upside is you'll be able to view a lot more objects in a viewing session. The downside is that the slewing motors can be noisy, and you'll be spending money on electronics and optics quality could suffer. Were you thinking of a new goto scope and mount or just a goto mount to use with your existing scopes?

[charmedkelly]

Welll i wasnt too sure i like using my other scopes my dobsonian especially but if im not in the mood to look i would like to use a goto mount but i wouldnt use it all the time if you know what i mean, i would just like to use it on objects i find extrmemly hard to find, is it making sense im not too good at explaining

[yeti monster]

Makes perfect sense to me, it can be really frustrating not being able to find a faint object. But then, it is so rewarding to finally locate one after several attempts.

I can see how goto would maintain the interest of anyone who chooses to accompany you one evening, as with ye olde wordle hide and seeke method of astronomy, those folk very quickly start chucking rocks in ponds and generally trying to distract you.

[Capricorn]

In simplest terms scope with built in motors and computer that once set up will work out from where it presently is where the next object you select from the menu is and will go to that object.

First the scope MUST be set to a standard and known initial state. Normally the scope base is level and the tube is level and the tube is pointing North. Various others bits of data is also required: Lat, Long, Time zone, DST.

Then the scope will do it's alignment. Mine simply slews to one prominent star, you centre it and say OK. It then picks another and slews to that. Again you centre it and say OK.

It should then have the data it needs. The alignment is to take out the small errors that will be present in your set up, and position.

With a Meade you can select a couple of stars and on them you can in effect tell the scope to use that newer position as a datum, it simply means that it uses a newer position to work from. I presume that Celestrons have the same.

You are paying for the electronics and the motors, they are not given away free. Never sure why people state this as it is obvious, so the scope side is less then if you went and spent on scope alone, but as I said it's sort of obvious.

You mention that one may help you find difficult items, they can but I would say avoid the Maks for this. Their small field of view means that the item may not appear in the scope and if you cannot see it to centre then it's not a lot of use.:eek: Happened to me.

You can simply stand the scope outside, power it up and drive it to whereever in the sky. Use mine like this a lot. Simple if you only have an hour or so, or just interested in one thing that evening, planets come to mind here.

They need power, again obvious, I suggest the kit to run from mains/car.

A lot of problems appear to stem from the setup aspect of it all.

[ottUp]

hi there can any explain a goto and if its a usefull telescope to have?

Kelly

Here's an article that gives an overview of Go-to systems.

It's useful and fun, but not essential. I like it at public outreach star parties, to get to objects to display quickly, but tend to work without it when I'm on my own, for practice hunting.

However, I would not recommend compromising on scope or mount quality to get a go-to feature: go-to won't make up for a shaky mount or poor optics. Find a scope and mount you'll be delighted with first, then see if you can add a go-to option; expect a decent go-to system to add more than £100 to the price. Several £100 for larger, more sophisticated systems. Another option to consider would be selecting a non-go-to mount of a type and model to which go-to can be added later, and save that as a planned upgrade.

- Richard

[charmedkelly]

can u add a goto to another scope ?

[brantuk]

Hi Kelly - the broad answer is yes you can add a goto to another scope. You can in fact purchase various combinations of OTA, goto mount, tripod, pier, etc...

However if you take that approach then you have to be sure it all fits together and you have the appropriate types, fittings and weightings for each part - makes it all a tad complicated and expensive for a beginner.

It may be best to buy a complete goto system - you should be able to get something reasonable for around £800 to £1000 - this would give you a usefull ota, good goto mount, and appropriate tripod all in one.

If you're on a tight budget I'd be tempted to learn the sky using stellarium (free to download) and add tracking motors to your existing kit (assuming it's on an eq mount). No goto, but tracking's a blessing for keeping your object in the eyepiece.

Or alternatively you could mount an existing ota on a tripod and mount with goto if you could stretch the budget a bit more. The shop should advise on what tube rings and mount attachments are available for your kit.

Or if you're saving for everything - £1000 to £1500 will get you a great complete system with goto and gps all brand new. You can also get this type of arrangement much cheaper by buying second hand - you'd need to know what you're looking for and preferably see it and check it over first.

Hope that's not too confusing for you.