To track or not to track

[demoneye]

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could explain which is the best tripod mount for tracking stars when you cant afford a tracking or motorised mount?

Thanks.

[brantuk]

I would say an eq mount if you are tracking manually - reason - cos it follows the stars along their natural path and you only have to track in one plane (assuming it's polar aligned).

But others will swear that nudge'ing a dob is easier. It's all down to personal preference really

[oldfruit]

I would agree with Brantuk. Nice and easy to line up an eq mount and just make small adjustments to track objects.

[Moonshane]

the other option is buy a dobsonian and make (if you are handy) an equatorial platform. google equatorial platform - there's loads of resources

[demoneye]

Thanks chaps,

For an EQ mount there appear to be different sorts, which is the cheapest sort to do the job of line up to polar than adjust only one knob to follow a star? Sounds like fair compromise for not spending on a motorised mount.

[msinclairinork]

A Skywatcher EQ5 is a good EQ mount to serve this purpuse and can be picked up fairly cheap. Say around £120.

These also come with the option of adding a RA drive later on for around £50.

Hope that helps

Michael

[brantuk]

Well I started with an EQ3-2. Found it very easy to polar align and use. There are cheaper ones but I'm not entirely familiar with them. What sort of budget do you have?

[John]

A Skywatcher EQ5 is a good EQ mount to serve this purpuse and can be picked up fairly cheap. Say around £120.

These also come with the option of adding a RA drive later on for around £50.

Hope that helps

Michael

Good suggestion Michael

The Celestron CG5 is pretty much the same as the EQ5 but has a slightly stouter tripod. Without drives, they often come up used for around the same price as the EQ5.

[demoneye]

I have very little as I want to spend as much as I can (200 quid) on the refractor. So the cheapest basic mount. I've seen EQ-1, EQ-2, AZ-3, and EQ-3, EQ3-2, mentioned with some of the skywatcher range. Are these just different weight tripods for different size scopes? or do they do different things?

[JamesM]

The mounts effectively reflect capacities and features. The cheapest are obviously the first two, none of these has any polar alignment scope or facility and relies on you adjusting the latitude (tilt) of the mount head and pointing it north to get a rough alignment. Precise alignment, where there is fine adjust that attempts to position the mount head so that it reflects polaris's true offset position from true celestial north, is really only intended for imaging and long term tracking, so I wouldn't focus too much concern in that direction. The AZ-3 does 'different' things in that it is an alt-azimuth mount that moves horizontally/vertically and not equatorially, which is where the horizontal movement is restrained by an axis that is tilted so that the mount can move across the sky in a shallow arch which replicates the path of stars, planets etc. The last two offer slightly more capacity in payload and facilitates the use of motors. Clearly your budget if buying new would dictate buying one of the first two. However, if you have secret designs on imaging in the future, you won't be able to motorise the first three mounts for tracking.

Clear skies

James

[msinclairinork]

Just came acros this CG-5 Mount on astro buy and sell for £125

I can vouch for the CG-5...see sig.

U.K. Astronomy Buy & Sell

Michael

[demoneye]

Thank you all for your help! I'll do some investigating, the CG-5 looks like a bargain to me!

Thanks.