What is the "best" forum for...

[smp]

...talking about the new all-in-one EAA scopes or robotic scopes, such as the Stellina, Vespera, eVScope, and eQuinox?

I purchased a Stellina back in March of this year and I've now done more "observing" in the past 6 months as I might have done in two good years in a row.

Is this type of scope, or the type of observing that is called Electronically Assisted Astronomy (EAA), welcome here on this forum? I see that it is marginalized on the Cloudy Nights forums, but some topics are running in their EAA forum for those who simply capture an image and do no post-processing, and also in their Image Processing forums, for those who are doing post-processing of images gathered by these scopes.

I ask about these scopes being welcome here, because over the past 18 months these scopes were met with much derision and malignment over on CN. After that died down (or was moderated down) things seem to have remained calm, but, as I said, there is a small group of folks using them, and they seem to be marginalized.

Thanks for listening! Hopefully, we can have a forum here on TSS that can welcome these new-fangled scopes and "observations".

smp

[Gordon]

This would be the one. viewforum.php?f=23

[Bigzmey]

That's great Stephen! There is no wrong way to enjoy the sky. I keep casually thinking about EAA, and posts like yours and Davesellars keep my interest alive.

[kt4hx]

As a visual only observer, I do understand the attraction of using EAA because of the increasing proliferation of LP across the US and other more populated areas of the world. On the other hand, I understand the viewpoint of the hardcore visual observers who feel it is "cheating" by using a sensor to see more in an object than their eye reveals. There was a time, many years back, that I would have agreed with that thinking - but no more. There are purists and in some cases outright snobs in every niche of the hobby. Over the years I have come to believe that whatever method gets people off the sofa and out under the night sky is just fine. I would rather see someone employ EAA to really see something than to continually struggle to see something at all and finally give up and move on to another hobby.

I am fortunate that we have a second house in a Bortle 3 area where I have my 17.5 inch full time. Granted EAA would show me even more than I can see with that scope, but I've never felt the need because I can observe and chase galaxies to my heart's content there. Now that our home sky is a solid Bortle 6, I would not object to some "help" from EAA to make observing at home more pleasant. I haven't gone that way yet, but its something that certainly could happen someday.

Anyway, I don't see any issues with discussing EAA in the forum that Gordon highlighted. While we do have our share of personalities here, I don't see any problems with people beating up someone for using EAA. In my opinion our general character is a bit more tolerant here. Not that we don't have our occasional tiff over a something, but typically it is minor and of short duration.

[smp]

Thanks *very* much, folks!

I am quite embarrassed that I missed that forum altogether - and I looked quite hard (I thought) so I might not bother anyone with something this obvious.
I guess I just cannot see something that is right in front of me!

Thanks again!

smp