The biggest advantage of the fork is that you don't need to move the telescope "cross-axis" when crossing the meridian. This can be a big advantage for long-exposure work. The fork on the Meade 16" is very robust, however the smaller Celestron and Meade forks do not mimic this robustness. The 16" is just barely a "portable" instrument, however, if you're a weightlifter. C. --- Kim Hyatt <khyatt@smithlayton.com> wrote:
The compactness does relate to greater stability, all other things being equal. However, I believe Chuck is right - German equatorial mounts are preferred over fork mounts for astrophotography.
Can anyone tell me fork mounts versus German equatorial mounts makes any difference to piggyback photography?
-----Original Message----- From: Joe Bauman [mailto:bau@desnews.com] Sent: Monday, March 24, 2003 12:42 PM To: Astronomy in Utah Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] SCT or Newtonian?
A related question, is an SC's performance T superior in any way other than compactness? That is, does it track better for long exposures? Or was it a mistake for me to buy one when I could have purchased a Newtonian for far less? Thanks, Joe
Joe Bauman science & military reporter Deseret News bau@desnews.com (801) 237-2169
_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com
http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com
http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop! http://platinum.yahoo.com