Rambling through telescope thoughts tonight
Nobody knows why the three thousand + dollar Unistellar eVscope failed so miserably. Yeah, we were prepared to be amazed as they promised in their advertising, but we only got a disappointing defect that had to be returned to the dealer. Perhaps the telescope could not deal with the heavy light pollution that exceeds the Bortle scale, or high altitude mist that blocks some stars, or just maybe the metal in the building killed the WIFI. After that fiasco, our taste for digital telescopes went to zero indefinitely. And with advertising filling our box for its competition, Stellina, we easily look the other way and delete the claims readily.
What about the long standing GOTO Celestron digital mounts as in the Celestron CGX/L? We've had a mental block in using one and after three years, still no luck with the system. Blame it on a different Asian set of GPS satellites, or problems with the Asian time zones, or a magnetized slag mount needing a protective Faraday Cage, or whatever. After that, my taste for digital mounts went to zero.
Alas, the working solution is at hand. I'm going back to trusted old school, reliable setting circles, finding objects manually with a finderscope and a small equatorial mount, and running a clock drive from a 9-volt battery that has one simple knob. I will use small telescopes that can be lifted with one hand, easily moved and ones that are fun to transport, and a real joy to use. I'm taking back astronomy and astrophotography the way it was, fun and exciting and every time out was a new discovery.
