TheSkySearchers

Bigzmey wrote: ↑Tue Dec 06, 2022 6:19 pm "The STAR BOOK TEN contains more than 272,000 celestial objects including approximately 260,000 stars from the SAO catalogue, 109 Messier objects, 7,840 NGC objects and 5,380 IC objects as well as the sun, moon, and planets."

"SkySafari 7 Pro includes over 100 million stars, 3 million galaxies down to 18th magnitude, and 750,000 solar system objects; including every comet and asteroid ever discovered. Plus, state of the art mobile telescope control." And complete Washington Double Star catalog and many obscure DSO catalogs.

How is that cutting functionality down considerably?

I had been in astronomy for more than 30 years as a star hopper before I first dipped my toe in the water with GOTO. First foray was an iOptron iEQ45 in 2012. Nice looking mount but the GOTO controller never worked. I tried everything that I could control but rather that GOTO, it was more like go wherever the hell it wanted to. At first, I assumed I was doing something wrong until friends very familiar with goto eventually agreed it was just screwy. It might be bad encoders or something similar.

It put me off for a while but then in 2017 I bought a second hand EM200. I set it up with a SkyFi 3 on my Takahashi EM200. I connect to that with Sky Safari 7 running on an iPad mini, big enough to see and navigate, small enough to put in the large hand pockets of my jacket. The iPad activates in white light, it only goes red after you get into Sky Safari.

Like Andrey, I'm an unabashed fan of Sky Safari. While it is true that SS has a much bigger database than the Starbook, I doubt that the majority of amateur astronomers would be limited by the Starbook's smaller databases. For me it's all about the functionality and ease of use. I haven't used the Starbook so can't comment there. However, I have compared SS with Stellarium and Astronomist. Both are very clunky by comparison to SS.

Once up and running, I can use fingerprint ID while the tablet is still in my pocket, then pull it out in red screen mode. I mostly use this combination for astrophotography where other things are also affecting my night vision. Occasionally I use it on the EM200 with my 6" f7 for visual in which case the pocket trick works well. In very warm weather when I don't have a large pocket, I just point the screen at the ground and use fingerprint ID then flip it over to look. It works really well.

My 18" dob has a NEXUS controller connected to the scope's encoders. This is a visual only scope. The controller has a well designed small dim orange display that doesn't seem to have any effect on my dark adaption.

Joe

It seems Vixen will only be providing the wireless unit with the SX, SXD and SXD2 mounts so no Starbook 10 with these.
So far the Starbook 10 is still provided with the SXP2, AXJ and AXD2 mounts though the Vixen site is showing the Starbook 10 as discontinued.
Very strange.

~

Yes, Vixen is a strange company.



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