Posted: Jun 02, 2017 4:23 pm
I sold my first telescope, an Orion 10" Newtonian on a Dobsonian mount, to Pierre, a Belgian friend. There's a place also not known for clear skies.
At that time, I'd bought my Meade model LX200 7" Mak-Cas, on Meade's LX200 goto fork mount. All you had to do was teach the telescope where it is by aligning to a couple of guide stars, then key in the catalog number of what you wanted to see. If that object was in view, the scope mount would swing it around for you, and it would be in the eyepiece. Newer GOTO mounts have GPS receivers, so are even easier to initially align.
On those few occasions when we got together to use them, Pierre would routinely grab that Dob and swing it around to whatever he wanted to see, and have it in the eyepiece as quickly or faster than that Meade GOTO mount. I've never seen anyone that knew the sky so well.
As for me, I rely heavily on the StarWalk app on my iPad and iPhone. I have a sky atlas in my pocket at all times.
By the way, there is a simple procedure to set up an iPad to switch to night vision red screen with a triple click on the home button, if anyone is interested. I haven't tried it on the iPhone, but I'm sure it works there, too.
At that time, I'd bought my Meade model LX200 7" Mak-Cas, on Meade's LX200 goto fork mount. All you had to do was teach the telescope where it is by aligning to a couple of guide stars, then key in the catalog number of what you wanted to see. If that object was in view, the scope mount would swing it around for you, and it would be in the eyepiece. Newer GOTO mounts have GPS receivers, so are even easier to initially align.
On those few occasions when we got together to use them, Pierre would routinely grab that Dob and swing it around to whatever he wanted to see, and have it in the eyepiece as quickly or faster than that Meade GOTO mount. I've never seen anyone that knew the sky so well.
As for me, I rely heavily on the StarWalk app on my iPad and iPhone. I have a sky atlas in my pocket at all times.
By the way, there is a simple procedure to set up an iPad to switch to night vision red screen with a triple click on the home button, if anyone is interested. I haven't tried it on the iPhone, but I'm sure it works there, too.