Brent, I think Joe's impression of ATMing dying-off is because it's not visible in the clubs these days. But he forgets about the side groups, such as your mirror-making classes, and more recently the meetings at Matt's garage on Saturday mornings. ATMing is still going on, but when a club becomes focused on outreach, to the exclusion of all else, the ATMing finds it's own sanctuaries. Even back in the old days, I would ride my bike up to John Baldwin's house and help him on his own telescope builds. I learned from a master who was also an engineer. You and Bruce also taught me a lot, as did Vaughn- and Vaughn is only a couple of years older than I. I learned the sky as a kid. I have owned a few Go-to mounts, still have one- but never use it. Takes too long to set up and finding objects is easy without it. I can beat it most of the time, lol. Glad I learned as a kid, I would hate to try and learn the sky as an adult. I can see where it would be a boon to those who can't recognize patterns, however. It has it's place. On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 8:54 AM Brent Watson via Utah-Astronomy < utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> wrote:
Yes, Chuck, most folks don't have the capability to build tracking nor goto mounts. There are some who do though. My reference was to the optical performance of the scopes, as I believe your original post was also. As to direction, that is learned and after a while becomes second nature. I hope I didn't claim that it was elitist to be a person who recognizes the stars and constellations. I merely stated that something was lost in the not having the ability ability to do so. That ability can also be learned but isn't as necessary with the computerized mounts. That doesn't make you better, just able to enjoy different aspects of astronomy. On Tuesday, October 22, 2019, 07:34:09 AM MDT, Chuck Hards < chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote: