Telescope Mounts

Mounts are invaluable, in not only taking the weight of the telescope - for even the lightest device can become heavy and cumbersome after a few hours - but in positioning the telescope and keeping it steady.

By mounting telescopes, the instrument can remain fixed on a set position in the sky. This also frees up your hands, so you can keep records and more easily adjust the telescope when focusing on a new object.

There are two differing types of telescope mounts. The Alt-Azimuth enables you to alter the vertical (altitude) and horizontal (azimuth) axes to locate an object in the sky, but is otherwise similar to a camera tripod.

There are two kinds of the Alt-Azimuth mounts. The Ball and Socket mount which allows for movement in all directions. And the Rocker Box, which is made of plywood and consists of a horizontal circular base and Teflon ball bearings that act as the altitude axis. These have a low center of gravity and are excellent for heavier telescopes.

The second type of mount, the Equatorial, uses two axes, which line up with the poles to track an object through the night sky. The axes can be either right ascension, polar or declination depending on the object you are trying to track. The axes of equatorial mounts are towards the Earth’s axis of rotation and thus can follow a fixed object across the sky as long as it is lined up properly.

Again there are two styles of this type of mount. The German equatorial mount, which is shaped like a T with the longer axis of the T lined up with the pole. And then there is the fork mount, which as its name suggests, is shaped like a fork, again lined up with the earth's pole with one axis being the base of the fork and the prongs the other.

If you are planning to take a lot of photos through your telescope, Equatorial mounts for telescope are excellent for taking pictures, as they allow for long exposures.

News About Telescope Mounts

Star-gazing planned atop Mount Burdell
Contra Costa Times
4 at the Mount Burdell Preserve, sponsored by the Marin County Open Space District. Local astronomer Larry Brodkin will set up his 8-foot Meade telescope ...

and more »

Program for Astronomy Education and Research Builds Radio-Telescopes
TMCnet
While fabricating the antenna mounts, all of them learned the art of welding. "While working on this project, both Court and Jake tested for and received ...

Automated Planet Finder telescope seeks life
One News Page
NLN8508 Automated Planet Finder telescope seeks life: High atop Mount Hamilton and far above the sprawl of San Jose, astro... http://bit.ly/c5KnBJ - about 3 ...

and more »

This Week's Sky at a Glance
Sky & Telescope
Can a computerized telescope take their place? I don't think so ? not for beginners, anyway, and especially not on mounts that are less than top-quality ...

Mount Wilson: One Year After the Fire
SkyandTelescope.com
Despite dense smoke in the distance, the dome of Mount Wilson's historic 100-inch telescope was unscathed by Southern California's devastating Station Fire. ...

Tucson telescope projects win big today
Arizona Daily Star
Marcia Rieke, a UA astronomy professor who was also a survey committee member, said large telescopes in Southern Arizona, such as Mount Graham's Large ...

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