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Guided mounts, with or without GOTO?


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I have a basic 70mm Konus refractor on an un-guided mount and am looking into guided mounts with a view in the long term to get into imaging. I'm aware this scope will not produce the best images but am thinking to start with I could also just mount my DSLR straight to the mount.

Having done some research it seems the SkyWatcher mounts are the most favoured. Are there alternatives?

Bearing in mind my long term intentions i'm also swayed towards the HEQ5, I'm aware for the money I could change my whole set-up but I'm not sure it's worth getting stuff I will probably want to upgrade in the future? How much difference is there between the cheaper guided mounts?

Finally, how beneficial is GOTO? Obviously it takes a lot of hassle out of finding objects but is it worth the extra money? How easy is it to find things without GOTO?

Sorry for the barrage of questions and thanks in advance for any help and suggestions.

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If you want to guide then chances are you'll hook your mount up to a PC in which case you can use any number of free planetarium apps to control the mount. GOTO for free (Stellarium, Carte du Ceil <sp>, etc).

The HEQ5 is a good option for imaging as long as you keep an eye on the overall weight of your setup (see sig)

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Hmmm... just to clear up what I think is a misconception here - guiding involves attaching a second telescope (guide scope) to the one that takes the pictures.

You'll need a second camera (for 2nd scope) which locks onto a star near the object you're imaging and feeds back tracking information to the mount. This is usually done via a computer, and software like Phd.

Goto is usually found on the sort of mount you're using and is a useful by product. You can get tracking mounts without goto, but the sort of mount we're talking about here usually has goto as well.

I think you would be well advised to read Steppenwolf's (Steve's) book "Making Every Photon Count". It'll tell you everything you need to know about imaging :hello2:

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I think you are confusing two terms but forgine me if I'm wrong. A tracking mount is one which is motorized to follow the sky. This used to be called a clock drive.

A guided (or autoguided) mount is a tracking mount with the added feature of a parallel telescope with basic astro camera, in communication with the mount. When the mount makes a mistake a star moves on the guide camera's chip and this error is communicated to the mount which then tries to put the star back where it was.

Sounds great in theory. In practice you have to fiddle and post questions on SGL!

No mount can track the sky at a photographic standard of accuracy without an autoguider, though one manufacturer claims otherwise. A large number of their customers disagree!

Olly

Edit, Apologies to Brantuk since we crossed in the post, but at least we agree!!

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Sorry, I have indeed confused myself with all these terms!! Oops. I've edited the title to suit but it seems you understood what I meant anyway :hello2:.

Olly - it seems like you're suggesting I will have to have a guide scope to get decent photos? This is expensive sounding news to me, I didn't think that was the case.

Thanks for the book suggestion Brantuk, i'll try to check it out.

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Olly - it seems like you're suggesting I will have to have a guide scope to get decent photos? This is expensive sounding news to me, I didn't think that was the case.

Thanks for the book suggestion Brantuk, i'll try to check it out.

IMO that depends on your definition of a "decent" photo... but it you are hoping to get images with breathtaking detail, then yes you would need to invest in the sort of gear Olly and others have mentioned. It also depends on your location... If you are in the middle of a city full of light pollution then long exposures are going to be dificult

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I didn't take this, but another forum member with a SW 127 on and alt az goto mount did - these scopes retail for around £350 - £400

52795d1299598825-another-saturn-127-mak-saturn2-07-03-2011.jpg

Now to me this is a "decent" image.... and taken with nothing more special than a web cam and then stacking the images.... and in the reach of most beginners.

Hopefully I've tried to get my point of view across in that a "good" image is down to the persons perception...

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Yes, it is probably worth pointing out in case you didn't realize that imaging of planets has different requirements from imaging of DSOs. It is quite possible to do unguided planetary imaging with a mount that just tracks across the sky with the planet for a couple of minutes, but if you want an hour or more worth of imaging a DSO then it will be a struggle to get away without guiding.

James

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Ok, cheers for the input so far.

I would be more than happy with that image, as a newcomer my idea of decent starts far below book worthy and some of the spectacular photos I have seen. I'm not expecting miracles straight away and if I get hooked and any good then guiding will be something to look at once more pennies have gone into the bank.

What about other mount options? Are there any other makes and models to consider other than the HEQ5?

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