TheSkySearchers

I use my cell phone to find objects. However, sometimes the cell phone is way off. It will be accurate facing north, but then 10 degrees are more off facing south. Thinking about a very small GOTO budget telescope or mount. I looked at a few like Starsense, but the reviews are very low due to alignment issues. What is the least expensive, smallest, and easiest to use GOTO telescope or mount? Thanks all.

Are you willing to buy used equipment. Telescope Warehouse has Meade DS2000 goto mounts for sale right now ($80, they will need the HB, which is a separate purchase) They can handle up to 8 to 10 lb.

Here is a Celestron GT (most likely, capacity 5lbs) go to mount off of eBay. I bought both of my small Celestron go to mounts off of eBay and they are still working perfectly three years later.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Celestron-Comp ... 632-2357-0

Cheers

JayTee wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 1:25 am Are you willing to buy used equipment. Telescope Warehouse has Meade DS2000 goto mounts for sale right now ($80, they will need the HB, which is a separate purchase) They can handle up to 8 to 10 lb.

Cheers

Thanks JayTee. I only buy used local. However, can you link me to the page? I could not find it at that website.

For visual observation the Celestron 127 SLT rig works for me.
Light, easy to transport...I have found the 127 SLT mounted Maksutov to be a convenient and satisfying rig. From Planets and Lunar to Clusters, and the brighter galaxies and Nebula this little rig works very well for me. I recently gave one of these rigs to one of my grandchildren.
Cost is around $575.00.

The cheapest solution that is also easy to use are DIY setting circles. For an Alt/Az mount you could make an Az setting circle and combine it with a wixey or use the cell phone as an inclinometer, that part works well. I would be wary of buying a super cheap mount that could be garbage. Check out the classifieds on Cloudy Nights, I saw some ioptron cubes for less than 100 but it could be garbage.

JayTee wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 1:25 am Are you willing to buy used equipment. Telescope Warehouse has Meade DS2000 goto mounts for sale right now ($80, they will need the HB, which is a separate purchase) They can handle up to 8 to 10 lb.

Here is a Celestron GT (most likely, capacity 5lbs) goto mount off of eBay. I bought both of my small Celestron go to mounts off of eBay and they are still working perfectly three years later.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Celestron-Comp ... 632-2357-0

Cheers

Above is a new link I just edited into the post for a Celestron go to mount. Here is the link to the Meade go to mount on the Telescope Warehouse eBay site.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Used-Meade-DS- ... 632-2357-0

Cheers

SkyHiker wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 3:18 am The cheapest solution that is also easy to use are DIY setting circles. For an Alt/Az mount you could make an Az setting circle and combine it with a wixey or use the cell phone as an inclinometer, that part works well. I would be wary of buying a super cheap mount that could be garbage. Check out the classifieds on Cloudy Nights, I saw some ioptron cubes for less than 100 but it could be garbage.

I tried an iOptron cube for my daughter and it was a fiasco. It's all plastic including gears and failed catastrophically 2nd night out. It was acceptable to my daughter to replace it with an ES Twilight non go to.

It may not be the cheapest but I like my SW AzGti. It can carry upto 11lb (100mm refractor, 127mm Mac), no wire to mess with, you control it from the app on your phone, quite stable in particular if you substitute the tripod.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... s=pi&pim=Y

viewtopic.php?f=48&t=2550

I often see this GOTO on Craigslist. What are your thoughts about this Celestron GOTO.

RD

The mount in your image is the Celestron GT goto mount. I have one, it works very well as long as you don't overload it. It can easily handle up to 4 lbs. I paid $50 for mine without the hand controller.

It is used for this project covered in this post.
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=3129

Cheers

Not sure if it meets all your criteria, but I’d probably go with an AZ-GTI. The GTE might be cheaper, but doesn’t have a hand controller or something like that.

Refractordude wrote: ↑Sat Jul 17, 2021 11:58 pm I use my cell phone to find objects. However, sometimes the cell phone is way off. ... What is the least expensive, smallest, and easiest to use GOTO telescope or mount?

Well, I was hopeful for you and for myself. It seems to be a unicorn. There is no way around the fact that the hobby is expensive and that as wonderful as the technology is, it is affordable only above some basic level. In other words, we should thank our lucky stars that we can buy as consumer goods instruments that would have been found at university departments 50 years ago, and would have been science fiction 100 years ago. Think about that. Read about 19th and 20th century amateurs and their 3-inch refractors.

We have 12-inch reflectors, computer controlled tracking, multi-mega pixel cameras (instead of chemical process films), spectroscopes, and more. (Yesterday, I was filling in a citation for myself on William O'Mullane on Astrostatistics and Data Mining. That sure beats the way the Women of Harvard compared and contrasted data sets.) For all of that, it remains that, as Robert Heinlein warned us in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress: TANSTAAFL - there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

(But we all keep our fingers crossed!)

It is another topic entirely, but it seems that in focussing on telescope optical systems, we miss the basic fact that the TRIPOD and MOUNT are the figurative and literal foundations of observing.

pakarinen wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:19 am Not sure if it meets all your criteria, but I’d probably go with an AZ-GTI. The GTE might be cheaper, but doesn’t have a hand controller or something like that.

Neither comes with a handset, though you can get a handset if you prefer.

The GTi allows you to loosen the clutches and manually move the scope without losing the alignment. The GTe would need you to reset your alignment .

They work really well with Sky Safari 6 Plus or Pro, and fairly well with Stellarium Plus or Pro. (both allow you to GOTO the scope to targets, SS6+ allows you to do a final correction if the goto is slightly out).