I finally tried a GoTo mount instead of star hopping, wish I did this sooner

Been doing manual star hopping with my 8" dob for about 4 years. Last month I borrowed a friend's Celestron GoTo mount and set it up in my backyard in Tucson. Finding faint galaxies like M51 took me less than 5 minutes versus my usual 20-30 minute struggle. I still love the dob for the view quality, but the tracking on the mount made sketching Jupiter so much easier. Is the extra setup time worth it for you guys, or do you stick with manual?

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sage_perry5d ago

So did the go-to actually speed up your sketching, or just the finding part?