Question:
Mounting a 10" dob OTA on an equatorial mount?
Dan L
2010-08-09 18:25:49 UTC
Hi. I'm a proud owner of an Orion Skyquest XT10, and while the dobsonian mount is extremely convenient for quick trips where I don't want to spend much time setting up or tearing down, I'd like to be able to track objects with hopes of experimenting with astrophotography.

So for a while now, I've been contemplating buying this mount/tripod:
http://www.telescope.com/control/accessories/mounts-and-tripods/orion-atlas-eq-g-computerized-goto-telescope-mount

and mounting the dob tube on it.

So my question is, would this be possible with this 13" dovetail mounting plate:
http://www.telescope.com/control/product/~category_id=mount_accessories/~pcategory=accessories/~product_id=A0024/~sSearchSession=c27ada55-68c3-4d3f-ae90-5fa8e65d1fcb

And these 298 mm tube rings:
http://www.telescope.com/control/product/~category_id=mount_accessories/~pcategory=accessories/~product_id=A0234/~sSearchSession=8f60dc7f-7296-4e49-9883-7ea4335107f9

I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't work, but I've glazed right over important details by mistake before. I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Thank you.
Six answers:
gn
2010-08-09 18:31:30 UTC
There are really two questions here, one is about the mount, the other is about astrophotography.



The mount:



This mount will handle your XT10. Furthermore, for visual observing, tracking will greatly enhance your capabilities.



You can also get tracking by putting your Dob on an equatorial platform. An equatorial platform, however, is not good for deep sky astrophotography because of "field rotation," which is demonstrated as well as I've ever seen it, with moving videos, in the link below.



When you put a Newt on a go-to equatorial mount, you will want to change the position of the eyepiece depending on what part of the sky you are in. So you don't just need rings. You need *rotatable rings* and should inquire as to whether your choice suits the need. Otherwise you should contact Parallax Instruments. Fancy rotatable rings use ball bearings to have an inner and outer ring; the less fancy style lines the rings with felt which often is enough to allow the scope to be rotated.



Every scope has an *optical axis*. The optical axis of the scope is not usually perfectly aligned with the tube. Usually that doesn't matter. However, when you have a go-to system, the system has "expectations" as to where the optical axis is. But you are rotating the optical axis to get at the eyepiece. The computer won't know you're doing that. So the accuracy of your go to movement (your "slewing") will be diminished, perhaps even substantially diminished, compared to a refractor or an SCT.



The stability of a Newtonian on a mount is related to the *moment arm* or leverage of the system as a whole. That means that your fat ten inch tube will present a significant surface area to the wind, and the long tube will have sufficient leverage that the shaking may be exaggerated which could, on some nights, frustrate your astrophotography ambitions.



Related to this is the problem of *balance* of the tube. It has to be balanced in both axes. When you add imaging equipment you will need an extra counterweight on the Dec axis. But you will *also* need to alter the position of the tube in the rings: if you add weight to the eyepiece area you will need to slide the tube "down" which could cause clearance issues in the legs. If you counter the extra weight by putting more weight at the bottom to move the scope up, you will need to add still more weight to the dec axis. And you may end up exceeding what the mount can reasonably handle.



I could write more about the issues but suffice it to say that for a 10" Newt I would recommend at least a Losmandy G11 and possibly an AP900 if you are serious about astrophotography. Because astrophotography is all about the mount.



Astrophotography:



Now, speaking of which: if you want to get into astrophotography, you have two domains: planets and the moon, and deep sky (galaxies, globular clusters, etc.). These are two completely different endeavors. For planets you will need a good webcam which will take thousands of images at very long focal lengths. Your XT10 is not the best choice for this. It may work OK, but you are working against the engineering of the scope: it has a *short* focal length, which you will need to barlow up about 3 to 5 times, and a *long* physical length, which decreases your imaging stability. So if you want to do that you should probably get a c8 or a c9.25 SCT: there you get *short* physical structure (maximizing stability) and *long focal length* (optimum for planets).



As a general rule, deep sky photography, by contrast, is extremely demanding of the mount. You need a minimum of periodic error, and a minimum of of other tracking errors (polar alignment) and a minimum of shaking. For these reasons, people who are learning to do *deep sky* often select 80 to 102mm refractors because these short focal length instruments (specifically the expensive apochromats) because these scopes are most tolerant of mount tracking errors. The longer your focal length and exposure times becomes, the more you need a superb mount. And the mount you are looking at is merely "pretty good." But that mount should be fine with a 4" or 5" refractor. Regrettably, the bad news is, in order to avoid sever color aberration with a refractor, you need an expensive triplet.



So it seems to me you need to consider what your needs are. The German equatorial is not the only way to get tracking. If you want to do photography, you need to think deeply about planets vs. deep sky. Your Newtonian *can* be used effectively for deep sky, and some people do in fact take an inexpensive tube and mount it on a humongo $15,000 mount like the Paramount ME. But the bias in photography seems to be apochromatic refractors for deep sky and SCTs for planets, but most of the serious Newtonian astrophotographers I know have migrated to very, very expensive mounts.



An inexpensive mount like the one you're looking at may be an exercise in frustration but at least when you $3000 to $10,000 for you 2nd mount you'll know why. And remember, you read it here first!



Incidentally these kinds of discussions really don't work on yahoo. Try astromart: pay the $12 (one time fee) and get access to tons of good quality equipment and discussion forums. Also try Cloudy Nights, excellent discussion forums, the most active on the net. But, the Cloudynights used market is about 1/20th the size of Astromart's, and Astromart is much better policed against fraud.



Hope that helps

GN



Edit: Newtonians on GEMs do not use slings, they use mirror cells, and are supported equally from all sides. No slings involved. The mirror cell on my 10" mirror works quite well. It is certainly the case, however, that my ten inch Newt on a German equatorial mount requires more gymnastics to reach the eyepiece than any of my other telescopes. The Orion XT10 uses a primary mirror cell which is different from the slings used by some, but not all, high end Dobsons. It should be OK in an equatorial configuration. I've included a link to a picture of the mirror cell of the XT10.
David
2010-08-10 20:03:15 UTC
Put a Dob on a German equatorial mount and you are in for some fun. Not as much fun as the people watching you, though. The problem is the eyepiece is at the wrong end of the telescope for this. It'll be all over the place. Not only that, sometimes it will be on the top of the telescope and other times it will be underneath. It'll be awful.



This isn't the way to start imaging. The Dob is not ideal for photography. The telescope is too long, heavy, and cumbersome for that mount, the focal length is way too long, You can buy an equatorial platform instead. When you buy an German equatorial mount, you are not buying weight carrying capacity, you are buying rigidity. With a balanced load, a mount will carry a lot more than its rated capacity. It won't be rigid though. It'll be wobbly. The forces on a mount are related to the length of the telescope. It's true, physics tells us we can calculate the forces by knowing the center of mass and using just that point. That physics doesn't include wind, though. For that wind physics, calculate the force of a gentle breeze pressing on a sail like telescope feet from the center of mass. It's not even steady. Wind is intermittent.



If you buy a mount rated for 40 pounds, you'll want far less if you're taking pictures, and far less if you are going to use an enormous telescope like a Dob.



Let's continue with your scenario. Hang a camera on the front end from a focuser that's made to hold a small eyepiece, and you'll wonder why it won't stay focused. Slew the mount to a target and your camera will be high in the air. Now, want to put an eyepiece in to see where you are pointed? Get ready for some neck craning, up on a step gymnastics all in the pitch dark. Can't touch the telescope, though, it'll wobble. You've just got to balance.



Photography is very demanding. The longer the focal length the more the tracking errors are magnified. You'll be much better off to get a small refractor (80-100mm) and start with that. The mount requirements are much less. The short focal length will be much more forgiving of errors. You'll be able to focus it, and you'll get usable images early on.



There's a reason you don't see people doing what you propose. It doesn't work well. Granted, it seems it should work well. It doesn't, though. Let's think about the Dob for a minute. The primary mirror should float. If you fix it in place, you get pinch distortion. A Dob mirror is the most precise thing made by humans. If your mirror was expanded to a mile across, the surface of that mirror would vary by less than the thickness of a playing card. When you are talking about that scale, it takes very little pressure on a mirror to alter that exquisite reflective surface. Uneven load, pressure on an edge, etc, and your mirror distorts. With the Dob mount, the mirror sits on a cell and is free to move a little. When you tip your Dob, the lower edge of the mirror is held in a flexible sling that gently supports the mirror as the weight of the mirror is transferred to the edge. That sling is only on one side, though. With a Dob, it only tips one way so the same side of the telescope is always down. A German Equatorial mount isn't that way. It will tip it so any side can be down. When the telescope is tipped so the wrong side is down, the mirror isn't held in the long supportive sling, it's supported by a bolt or a stop. That is going to make your mirror flex. You won't see it but the light will respond to it and the stars will be distorted.



If you want your Dob to track, get an equatorial platform. You'll have to reset it every 30-40 minutes but while it is running, the image will be steady. You can start to experiment with pictures of the moon, planets, etc, really bright things that don't take a long time to photograph.



When you talk to the order taker at Orion, ask if it's a good idea to put your Dob on the German equatorial mount. If he says yes, you'll know that either he's clueless or, worse, perhaps his heart has been blackened by the promise of commission.
?
2010-08-09 18:52:51 UTC
First I'd suggest that you think long and hard before going this route. I got a Losmandy G-11 mount for my 8-inch Cave reflector, and also mounted my 10-inch Meade Dob on it. I found that I almost never used the mount because it was so heavy and awkward to set up and use. I returned my 10-inch Dob to its Dob mount, got a Dob mount for my Cave, and sold my Losmandy mount. The Atlas is considerably heavier than a Losmandy G-11.



If you do go this route, don't use the standard 13" dovetail mounting plate, because you will have significant flexure. Get the wide saddle adapter for the Atlas and the wide universal plate. These will give you a much more solid connection between mount and telescope.



The Orion rings will work, but a large Newtonian really benefits from a rotating ring system. These are a lot more expensive than the Orion rings, available from Parallax and Parks, but otherwise you will find the eyepiece in many awkward positions.



You should probably consider mounting the Atlas on a short pier rather than the standard tripod. The tripod will put the eyepiece of a 10" Newtonian 7 or 8 feet off the ground, and you'll need a stepladder to reach it.
Debra
2016-04-10 12:06:18 UTC
For the best answers, search on this site https://shorturl.im/awvgQ



"Dobsonian" usually refers to a reflector on a large altazimuth mount. They are popular because they provide a large aperture on an easy-to-use solid mount which is also relatively lightweight, as it lacks the counterweights which a German equatorial requires. In fact, you can mount _any_ kind of telescope on a Dobsonian mount, not just a Newtonian. If you take the tube of a "Dobsonian" telescope and mount it on a German equatorial mount, it ceases to be a "Dobsonian". My Dobsonian mount sits on something called an "equatorial platform" which moves the whole Dobsonian (mount and telescope) to track the stars. It's still a Dobsonian (large altazimuth mount, large bearings), but it also tracks the stars automatically.
2016-03-24 08:19:23 UTC
No, a Dobsonian telescope is a telescope that is on a Dobsonian mount. Dobsonian is the name for that particular type of alt-az mount. There are other types of alt-az mounts, just as there is more than one type of equatorial mount. The Dobsonian mount is extremely simple, light and portable compared to a German Equatorial. You can build a 12" telescope and Dobsonian in your garage and transport the entire thing anywhere in your car. Try that with a 12" G-E telescope!
warner
2017-02-10 11:11:30 UTC
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