Astronomical Scenario

The fabled Equatorial Mount fairy hovers over
your head, buzzing about trailing sparklies, and
holding two of your favorite mounts, one in
each hand: a Vixen GP-DX w/metal pier,
and in the other, a GP-DX w/ash wood
tripod. In her(or his, for those of you
in California) characteristically high-
pitched and squeaky voice, she
asks...

"Which one would you like?"

You choose, whereupon it
drops from the sky to the
ground unscathed, and
free of import duties.

Which would you
prefer, and why?

Alan

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 09:13:44 -0700, "Starlord" ...reflected:

I stand guard and stay the course with my DOB mount.

O! But you can't motorise a Dobsonian.

Alan

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 11:39:08 -0500, Alan W. Craft
wrote:

O! But you can't motorise a Dobsonian.

But you can, quite easily. Of course, that then opens up the philosophical
discussion of whether a motorized Dob is really a Dob...

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 19:14:50 +0200, "Jeroen Smaal" ...reflected:

snip

Hi Alan,

The Vixen pier is extremely stable, but REALLY heavy once assembled, and
cumbersome to move around indoors, especially if you care about your
furniture. If you could set it up permanently, go for the pier. If you're
looking for something that's transportable, take the wood tripod, which is
still very much OK.

FYI, I have both but I'm mostly using the tripod (still planning for a
permanent pier setup sometime in the future).

Jeroen.

Hello Jeroen,

I had sent back a complete Vixen setup, that is, their 4" achromat
on the GP mount w/aluminum tripod, and at last I've been notified of its
RA dispostion. Astronomics of Norman, Oklahoma charged me only
a 5% restocking fee for their trouble, but perhaps only because I had
just previously purchased from them a Takahashi FS-102 O.T.A.
combined with the intent to exchange the return for just an
equatorial mount to complement.

I finally decided on the GP-DX w/ash tripod. I think it'll be great.

I did consider the pier, but decided that it was not as versatile,
though that doesn't mean I won't consider it in the future,
of course.

Alan

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 17:48:10 GMT, Chris L Peterson ...reflected:

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 11:39:08 -0500, Alan W. Craft
wrote:

O! But you can't motorise a Dobsonian.

But you can, quite easily. Of course, that then opens up the philosophical
discussion of whether a motorized Dob is really a Dob...

_______________________________________________ __

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Now that I think about it, I vaguely remember something
about motorising Dobsonians back when I had subscribed
to Sky & Telescope and the like; but that was at least
12 years ago or more, and I'm unable to recall
anything specific.

Alan

You can too! I saw a 8in Dob at the RTMC back in 87 I think it was, where the
guy not only had wheels that drove the mount a full 360degs around, but the
bearings had wheels that drove it up and down and all this was controled via an
Atari 800XL with his own designed add on hardware and a 1050 Disk drive that
held the data for the finding of stars. So don't go around telling anyone a Dob
can't have control motors on it, I've seen it first hand.
Someplace in my photos I have stashed away I have photos of the set up.


--
"In this universe the night was falling,the shadows were lengthening
towards an east that would not know another dawn.
But elsewhere the stars were still young and the light of morning
lingered: and along the path he once had followed, man would one day go
again."

Arthur C. Clarke, The City & The Stars

SIAR
www.starlords.org
Bishop's Car Fund
http://www.bishopcarfund.Netfirms.com/
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"Alan W. Craft" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 09:13:44 -0700, "Starlord"
....reflected:

I stand guard and stay the course with my DOB mount.

O! But you can't motorise a Dobsonian.

Alan



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