Go To Mounts

Hi folks. Im new here so excuse my ignorence. Im thinking of motorising my 4" Bresser and im wondering whether a go to motorised tripod would be better than a tripod motor. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Its a wonderfull scope but it can be very dificult to find certain objects such as nebulae and galaxies. It took me a while to find the andromeda galaxy the other night so im thinking GOTO mount might be the answer! any thoughts!

Star hoping is fun and it is always a good idea to (1) use a widefield eyepiece and (2) to use various signposts (ie. stars) in helping locate the field of view.

Having said all of the above, a GOTO can make your task easier but it will depend on the quality of the GOTO electronics and mount. I have a super high-end mount and it places each and every target on my CCD imaging chip whose dimensions are a mere 11.8 x 8.9 mm .... with a much cheaper GOTO system, I suspect you will not be able to get this super accuracy.

If you are near a club, you may wish to take a peek at other fellow amateurs' mounts with GOTO capability to see how well it performs and how well it would suit your needs (and budget).

I agree that star hopping is the best way to find things (and the most fun). To do it you will need a basic knowledge of the night sky (even if this means just being able to look up and know 2 or 3 constellations or pointer stars with the naked eye). If you locate a well known celestial body you can pretty much without too much trouble find most objects you are looking for.

But hey....................even if you dont find what you are looking for, you will find so much more many things.

When i observe......................i observe. Nothing is too insignificant for me. i just scan the sky and if i see something that really appeals to me i will spend a few mins observing....................then move on.

I dont see the point in limiting your observing to a half a dozen objects when there are half a million objects out there to be seen.

The widest FOV eyepiece i have right now is a 20mm (it just about shows me the seven sisters but not much else around it) which is ok.........but i want an eyepiece that will give me a wider FOV.

Unfortunately astronomy in general is a very expensive hobby. The difference between €200 and €2000 is VAST in terms of how well you see things. But i honestly feel that once YOU are happy with how you see things on YOUR budget................that is all that matters.

My scope cost about €300 and i can for the first time in my life see that Mars is a round disk and not just a big star (point of light). I can see that there is a white plar cap on Mars...............and not much else. But i am so happy.....................because i have never seen Mars so well before.

Dont even get me started about the moon.....................WOW is all i can say. It should be back in the sky in about a week.

Paul,

I have the TeleVue 55mm Plossl which is my most frequently used eyepiece. Such an eyepiece is especially useful (almost mandatory) when you have a long focal length instrument such as a C14 SCT.

They are available used for around $150 on Astromart. If anyone locally has one, take a peek ... you will be impressed.

I'm guessing a 55mm would give you a very wide FOV?

My scope is 1000mm Focal Length (f/11)

As a telescope newbie i can attest to the fact that we all seem to want small eyepieces (10mm or less) to get us closer to what we are viewing. But i want larger ones so that i can see the complete picture............say for example...........what size EP would allow me to see the whole of Orion in the FOV?

Is that even possible?

Paul,

To get the magnification a particular eyepiece will yield, simply divide the focal length of your telescope with the focal length of your eyepiece. If you have a 1000mm focal length telescope and are using a TeleVue 55mm Plossl, your magnification is around 18x (ie. 1000/55).

As for Orion, if you mean M42 and not the constellation, it should be quite easy since it spans 0.5 to 1.0 degrees in apparent diameter. If you mean the constellation, there is no way ... it is way too large and, in fact, even binoculars will not help you. Just to give you an idea, you require a 50mm lens on the Canon EOS 300d to frame the constellation.