Goto vs. Pushto

Kind of narrowed my purchase to a Dob. Would like some input of a GoTo vs. a PushTo. I know both can be used manually but my primary use would be showing stuff to others either at my house or a local Club Star Party. My main concern is that with a Pushto or a Manual Dob. that higher powers looking at Lunar or Planetary stuff the need to constantly realign and recenter the object.

How quickly would these objects track out of the field of view.

Jerry Jones said:

Kind of narrowed my purchase to a Dob. Would like some input of a GoTo vs. a PushTo. I know both can be used manually but my primary use would be showing stuff to others either at my house or a local Club Star Party. My main concern is that with a Pushto or a Manual Dob. that higher powers looking at Lunar or Planetary stuff the need to constantly realign and recenter the object.

How quickly would these objects track out of the field of view.

My own preference is push to primarily because I can push to faster than goto. That being said tracking is important also particularly at higher powers. Thus I find my preference is push to combined with a tracking platform.

For a reasonably small scope, push-to is fast and convenient. If climbing a ladder or sharing with (inexperienced) friends, tracking is convenient. The max sky drift is a degree in four minutes... which is fast at high mag. e.g. it you are savoring a planet at 300x with a 65 deg apparent field of view eyepiece, it would cruise cler across the field in less than a minute. That said, I have indeed shared a giant Dob at high mag with friends, no problem... But they are experienced. Tom

Hi Jerry,
Good choice with going with the dob (the 10" is the way to go over the 8") and because you are going to have non users look through the scope and planets are the main attraction then tracking is a must.
What I've found is by the time someone who has never looked through a telescope eyepiece finds how close to get to eyepiece, focuses on the object and then tries to see what you describe to them the object has moved out of the field of view. You will most likely be at 100x-150X on planets to get the wow factor and that will cause the object to move quickly out of the field of view and for sure out of the sweet spot of the EP in general.
In most 10" dobs a 10 MM or a 8 MM eyepiece will be great on planets.

There is one other way to achieve this. Two Co-aligned scopes where one person aims it and the other is observing too. That is IDEAL for star parties because (if they are otherwise identical) you describe the object and the other enjoys the tour. Think of it as taking flying lessons where pilot and student both have the same view and controls! I've always wanted to do that but it's on the list of never get to. Would look like Dob binos but both eyepieces are outboard and traditional. Just don't poke the student's eye out... This of course would be the topic of another thread. Has anyone out there ever tried this? Tom