I had my two week post op appointment, and guess what? I am doing so well they advanced my diet, no more full liquids now I am on to mushy proteins!
Now I need to begin by discussing a sensitive subject.
Ladies and Gentlemen I need to talk to you about the sizes of your equatorial
mounts. Now I just went back and corrected some mistakes in my rant about aperture when I came across this monstrosity:
This is the Skywatcher EQ8, and there is some excitement about it, even talk that it will challenge the big boys, i.e. the Paramount ME and the Astrophysics AP1200. To this I say, so what? This thing ways about 110lbs, which means that you will take it out once a year if at all, the same thing goes for the Paramount and the AP1200. This is yet another symptom of the bigger is better mentality, and it is highly correlated with aperture fever.
If you want a beefy equitorial mount you are sport for choice from the CGE Pro to the LX 850 to the Losmandy HGM Titan, but the question you have to ask is, is a 100lb mount really "portable." Just because it mounts to a tripod does not mean that you can lug it around as much as you want. The only way these mounts are truly useful is if you put them in a dome near your home.
Its an insidious trend I have noticed, taking ridiculously massive mounts, putting them on tripods and calling them "portable." The EQ8 even has handles on the mount head. If you really want to do astrophotography get yourself a sturdy workhorse like them mount I am going to get:
And yes I changed my mind again, the Gemini II system scares the shit out of me, I think it might be too complex for its own good.
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