I’m decent at typing though, because I can go back and edit stuff. If you ask me in person how an equatorial telescope mount works, I will have no idea how to begin. But here on the internet, I can just say
An altitude/azimuth mount (like the dobsonian collecting dust in your neighbor’s basement), rotates on axes local to you. To track a target with an alt/az mount, you have to continuously rotate the telescope left or right (that’s the azimuth), and up or down (that’s the altitude).
An equatorial mount rotates around the same axis as the Earth itself, which means that throughout the night as the stars move across the sky, you only have to rotate the telescope in one direction to track a target. It effectively cancels out the Earth’s rotation, keeping the sky stationary (relative to the scope).
If I want to go a little deeper, I can try to explain right ascension and declination, but that’s a whole nother paragraph
I’m great at some stuff, but it’s useless stuff. I’m awful at talking, so even when I’m good at something, I look stupid when I try to explain it
I’m decent at typing though, because I can go back and edit stuff. If you ask me in person how an equatorial telescope mount works, I will have no idea how to begin. But here on the internet, I can just say
An altitude/azimuth mount (like the dobsonian collecting dust in your neighbor’s basement), rotates on axes local to you. To track a target with an alt/az mount, you have to continuously rotate the telescope left or right (that’s the azimuth), and up or down (that’s the altitude).
An equatorial mount rotates around the same axis as the Earth itself, which means that throughout the night as the stars move across the sky, you only have to rotate the telescope in one direction to track a target. It effectively cancels out the Earth’s rotation, keeping the sky stationary (relative to the scope).
If I want to go a little deeper, I can try to explain right ascension and declination, but that’s a whole nother paragraph