Object Locator v Go-To & buying advice?

[You can't be Sirius]

Hi all, new to this forum and astronomy so looking for help please.

Having originally decided that I didn't want Go To because I recognise the need to invest my money in the scope, I have had a change of heart for two reasons. 1) I can view more in one night and learn as I go. 2) I plan to involve my 11 year old daughter in this and feel it will enable me to keep her interest better if I can easily locate what we want to view.

I have looked at the Orion Skyquest XT8, which is an 8" dob with "object locator". ORION USA SKYQUEST XT8 Intelliscope Dobsonian Telescope with Object Locator - Telescopes UK: Telescopes & Telescope Accessories in your only London shop

I have also looked at the Explorer 200P EQ5 SynScan EQ Go-To Explorer 200P EQ5 SynScan EQ GOTO Mount With DVD | Telescopes | Rother Valley Optics

Please understand that I am a newbie to astronomy and still working out what I want for a first scope so if my question is a bit daft I apologise. Is Object locaotor the same as Go To? Does one have advantages/disadvantages over the other?

I am at this point swayed by the Explorer because I have found really good reviews and consider 8" with Go To a happy medium between investment in a decent scope and the ability to learn from Go To. Whereas I am struggling to find much at all about the Orion. However the Orion is 10" and I constantly read that aperture is king.

My location is the Vale of Evesham so the sky is good here with very little artificial light and no town too close. I want to view deep sky and planets but have little interest in attaching a camera at this stage, although that may change in the future. Storage and portability are not real issues as I have a large rear garden with 360 degree access to the sky which is where I will do all my viewing.

Your patience and advice would be appreciated as I don't want to invest upwards of £600 to discover I have made an error.

Many thanks.

[Macavity]

I happened to find the following link, which explains the "Object Locator" rather well?

Orion Skyquest XT8 / XT10 Intelliscope Computer Object Locator System Review

The most fundamental observation, is that there are no motors... to go wrong (maybe!). Your own muscles provide the "GoTo"! And from a personal point of view, the absence of sundry nocturnal whirrings might not be a bad thing. Of course, this means you have to "track" the (found) objects manually, as they move across the sky, but...

[Astro_Baby]

Well its six of one and half a dozen of the other. Push-To is basically a method of the scope telling you which way to shove it - up a bit, down a bit etc until your on target when its up to you to keep the object in view. GoTo on the other hand is a push button affair whereby the scope finds the target for you and keeps tracking it.

Bear in mind both GoTo and Push To technologies need a bit of set-up - none of this stuff is push button in the way that a DVD player is.

I think personally your right to opt for GoTo where a child is involved. Most children have low boredom thresholds and if they are just kept standing around while you fumble about trying to find stuff they quickly get fed up and decide watching The Simpsons is likley to be more profitable to them than watching Dad mess about endlessly and find nothing for them to see. LOts of beginners are surpised by how hard stuff is to find.

I started out with grand ambitions to learn the sky but I lack the time and the weather doesnt help much - when you only get maybe 1 night every 2 months to use the scope you start to get frustrated that you cant ever find anything. Thats why in the end I upgraded to GoTo. Its all very well people saying its the thrillof the chase but when I have maybe 4 hours of time in two months I dont want to spen them trying to find something I want to get on and see something.

Its horses for course of course - I have seen beginners buy GoTO and find it too dull because they prefer the challenge of finding stuff and I have also seen people start off with high hopes of doing it the hard way only to succumb to GoTo when they find its too hard finding things 'the hard way'. A few cold nights getting frozen to look at nothing often causes a reevaluation of requirements.

Much of this depends on other factors, if I lived in a dark sky area with my own garden I'd buyt a huge dob and do it all manually - I dont - I live ina block of flats with a demanding job and two teenage boys to take care of. Between my commitments I am lucky to have one night a week to observe with and because of the vagaries of the UK weather that quite frequently means I get one day a month. Since August I have had a whopping 2 nights out under the sky. Under those conditions I doubt I would ever learn enough fo the dsky to find anything much.

I only run through my own personal pain to show you that its not so much about 'whats right' purism or lazy tecno geeks but about the personal circumstances of each astronomer.

With a child - or young person in tow I think I would always go GoTo with tracking. Tracking means you can share the eyepiece without the target having moved each time. This is especially helpful when doing planetary at high magnifications - it cuts down the wobble and makes sharing the eyepiece easier.

You could consider a GoTo Dob which is what I would have bought if they had been available when I bought the 200/HEQ5 combo. I do like the EQ mount but being honest its a tons of kit to mess about with and its a learning curve in its own right. A dob would have cut down the weight factor by a large amount and made the whole system more transporatble. On the other hand the HEQ5 mount allows me to chop and change telescopes with no other investment - I can put my refractor or my Mak on it.

Interestingly my eldest who is 18 has shown zero interest in my hobby apart from helping me strip stuff to bits which he enjoys but ....dah dah last weekend I used a GoTo mount with a scope on it for some testing and he was wowed by the techno approach and has finally shown an interest in coming out to observe with me.

ps aperture is not really king - location is king and a scope you will use. A 3" scope you will use is far batter than a 12" one you wont.

[Cornelius Varley]

The Orion object locator is more "push to" rather than goto. The dobsonian mount doesn't have the motorised mount as the Skywatcher Flexitube dobsonian mounts. The Intelliscope mount requires the user to manually push the mount in the required direction.

Peter

[You can't be Sirius]

Right, now I am going to appear really thick! I understand the Go To, motorised via a small handset to where I want to go, sounds simple enough. However, push to? Surely the whole idea of Go To is that the motorised mount does the work finding the object? If you have to push how do you know where to push to? Am I missing something here?

Thanks for the replies so far.

[You can't be Sirius]

On second reading of the link kindly provided I now understand. The arrows on the handset tell you which way to point. I think this has convinced me that Go To is the right way to go, so will go and take a look at the Explorer 200P EQ5 SynScan EQ Go-To. It does seem to tick all the boxes and will hopefully give us many years of excellent viewing.

Thanks for all your help.

[gedmac]

On second reading of the link kindly provided I now understand. The arrows on the handset tell you which way to point. I think this has convinced me that Go To is the right way to go, so will go and take a look at the Explorer 200P EQ5 SynScan EQ Go-To. It does seem to tick all the boxes and will hopefully give us many years of excellent viewing.

Thanks for all your help.

i would also as someone mentioned take a look at goto dobsonians like this one Dobsonians - Skywatcher Skyliner 200P FlexTube GOTO a little less hassle in set up.also cosiderably less weight to lug around:p

[You can't be Sirius]

i would also as someone mentioned take a look at goto dobsonians like this one Dobsonians - Skywatcher Skyliner 200P FlexTube GOTO a little less hassle in set up.also cosiderably less weight to lug around:p

Thanks for the suggestion, I did consider the dob you mentioned, but at an extra £150 I found it difficult to justify it considering they are both 8". Doesn't mean I have ruled it out, and I like the dob for less setting up time, although it looks like a real hulk, so we'll see. Trouble is there is such a massive choice available to a novice like me I worry about spending too long weighing up the options and end up getting more confused.

[You can't be Sirius]

Thanks Astro Baby, I think you've summed up my situation perfectly, and probably convinced me to go with the 200P.

Thanks to everyone, great site and I look forward to posting about our first view.

[jonathan]

I found that the best £180 I spent that kept me coming back for more was on the Celestron Sky Scout. It's essentially like the Push-to but without the telescope, instead it's a hand-held GPS with a large red display which tells you just about everything you'd want to know about the object you're looking at (and many that you can't see without really good eye sight and dark skies). Perhaps the best feature is the audio tour, used with any portable speaker unit (Celestron do one and there is an identical unit for half the price.. if you can find it for sale), I've whiled away many an hour gazing upwards while listening to the calming voice explaining facts and trivia about the stars. When used with a light pair of binoculars it can easily be as enjoyable as using a telescope, and much faster too.

Only down side to this device really is that it can be a little hard to find anything but bright objects, as it relies on you looking through the (non-magnifying) eyepiece which contains a red ring with indicator arrows telling you which direction to point it. If you set it to Identify and point it to a random patch of sky it will probably tell you ten objects, many of which you won't even be able to see, but this would come into it's own when used in conjunction with a telescope!

[gedmac]

Thanks for the suggestion, I did consider the dob you mentioned, but at an extra £150 I found it difficult to justify it considering they are both 8". Doesn't mean I have ruled it out, and I like the dob for less setting up time, although it looks like a real hulk, so we'll see. Trouble is there is such a massive choice available to a novice like me I worry about spending too long weighing up the options and end up getting more confused.

looks bulky but weighs alot less i lug mine about in 1 piece:p