Digital tracking has also made it a popular telescope mount used in amateur astronomy. Since the invention of digital tracking systems, altazimuth mounts have come to be used in practically all modern large research telescopes. This meant until recently it was normally used with inexpensive commercial and hobby constructions. This mechanically simple mount was used in early telescope designs and until the second half of the 20th century was used as a "less sophisticated" alternative to equatorial mounts since it did not allow tracking of the night sky. William Herschel's 49-inch (1,200 mm) 40-foot telescope on an altazimuth mount.Īltazimuth, altitude-azimuth, or alt-az mounts allow telescopes to be moved in altitude (up and down), or azimuth (side to side), as separate motions. Transit mounts are also used to save on cost or where the instruments mass makes movement on more than one axis very difficult, such as large radio telescopes. This type of mount is used in transit telescopes, designed for precision astronomical measurement. This allows the telescope to view the whole sky, but only when the Earth's rotation allows the objects to cross ( transit) through that narrow north-south line (the meridian). Transit mounts are single axis mounts fixed in azimuth while rotating in altitude, usually oriented on a north-south axis. They can cover the whole sky but only observe objects for the short time when that object passes a specific altitude and azimuth. Fixed altitude mounts įixed-altitude mounts usually have the primary optics fixed at an altitude angle while rotating horizontally (in azimuth).
Fixed telescope mounts are entirely fixed in one position, such as Zenith telescopes that point only straight up and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Green Bank fixed radio ' horn' built to observe Cassiopeia A.
0 kommentar(er)
