Telescope Reviews: Goto or Not to Goto

I am also fairly new to this hobby, about 6 months into it. But I got into it for different reasons/goals. Mainly I wanted to focus on photography. I wanted a hobby that required a fair ammount of learning, a fair ammount outside in the fresh air, and something that let me use my computer skills. So I went for astrophotography.

I spent a fair ammount of time outside/on the balcony with binoculars, and using stellarium as a star chart to locate objects. I found it very time consuming to locate an object. I also spent time semisharing a 12inch lightbridge. After watching the time consumed star hopping and then trying to locate objects. I decided the time "used/wasted" trying to locate and center an object, was time that could have been used imaging.

So i went with a low range goto mount. Mainly as there is more than enough accessories still needed for imaging, that there really just wasnt enough money

And I have to say, with the ammount of learning still required and time required while imaging. The time need to really acheive great focus, assuming one doesnt have an expensive auto/motorfocus focuser. The time refocusing when changing filters, unless one has expensive parafocal filters, and a filter wheel.

Theres also a fair ammount of time needed to setup all the additional equipment required while imaging, camera, laptop, additional power requirements.

On top of that, comes the ammount of learning still required to be able to produce decent images, decent of course being relative to the person taking the image. for imaging you need to learn so many things, focusing becomes almost an art form in itself. Tracking, and later guiding, arent just plug and play. once you do have images, either color or LRGB you still need to process those images, and learning to really use photoshop (btw not cheap at all) or Gimp. Processing is a fairly steep learning curve, and is also time consuming, I have spent 2-3 times more time stacking processing images, than it actually took to take the images.

So for me personally, I think theres enough time still invested in getting images, and more than enough to learn about getting to the point of being able to image well, and then processing them. So needing to still learn star charts, star hopping, and locating objects with a non goto mount, just adds one more peice of complexity thats really note needed, esp for beginners in the hobby.

A final thought, although with a goto you dont have to know the sky all that well, doesnt stop you from still learning they sky thru the goto system. You learn the major stars while aligning. With my high precesion setting, before locating an object, it requires you to located a star on the way, so you can learn the locations of several stars along the way, as well the controller listing in which constilation its located in. I also use Stellarium as a secondary goto system connected to my mount, so I can browse the area I am imaging thru the program, while I am imaging.

and a really final thought, Imaging is BORING..... having another scope, like a dobson, is something I really still want to get, then I can view the object while I image it. Some of the magic of being out under the stars get lost in translation while looking at it thru laptop. But even if I wasnt imaging, I would still prefer a goto to a non-goto, I prefer to spend more time on the object, then looking for the object.

my two cents

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I have round thing with a mirror in the bottom, attached to spinny thing, and it lets me see shiny objects in the dark....