Telescope Reviews: Re: A Case for GOTO

Greetings Eric and all,

Great article and responses. A little history about my astronomy "walk". I purchased my first "real" telescope over 20 years ago - a Meade SCT. In order to find DSOs, I used setting circles and a Tirion star atlas. The only way I could get around the sky then was to star hop. This was great experience and obviously I learned the night sky. After several years I began film astrophotography. I really enjoyed this and the love affair lasted for years. As sick as it sounds, it was “fun” guiding through an illuminated reticle for hours in freezing weather and very satisfying when you got a good shot. As I grew older I became less able to focus through a viewfinder and gradually moved away from astrophotography being frustrated with my hit-or-miss results (mostly miss). Actually, I moved away from observing too with raising kids and working taking up most of my time. Last spring I dragged out the SCT and began observing again. I really enjoyed it but did have some difficulty finding "small fuzzies". While I was usually successful, it took more time to locate and observe objects than I had. Moon, weather, work and other obligations did not let me get out to observe very often. Since CCDs were on the scene and one could focus and frame in real time, I considered easing into astrophotography again. I ordered an Orion 100ED with a Sirius GOTO mount to help locate objects (the weekend before I had spent several hours trying to find certain objects). When the Orion equipment arrived, I was stunned at the productivity that GOTO provided - I located the 8 objects I had searched for earlier within a few minutes. Since setting up an imaging session seemed to be very easy now, I purchased a Meade DSI Pro. The rest is history – astronomy and astrophotography became my passion again.

I now image with a TEC 160ED/MI-250 and STL-11000 and am amazed at the equipment available to the amateur astronomer. I am not cavalier about money and since astronomy is my only vice, I chose to buy the best equipment I could afford.

Eric, thanks for reminding me of the good old days. I really enjoyed the transition from dew-drenched star charts, setting circles and film to computer-driven GOTO and digital imaging – I believe I got the best of both worlds.

Clear skies to all.

Edited by raf1 (09/27/07 10:35 AM)

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