Equatorial Platform for Dobsonian Telescopes - variable Polar height

Geoptik Equatorial Platform for Dobsonian Telescopes - variable Polar height

The stable equatorial platform for Dobsonian telescopes offers precise tracking and variable latitude adjustment.

• The pole height is adjustable from 30° to 60° north and south latitude.
• Spirit level and adjustable feet for precise positioning
• Hand controller with variable speed setting
• Power supply with 12 V DC - popular voltage
• No slipping
• Due to the accurate tracking, even astrophotography with short exposure times becomes possible. Exciting possibilites open if used with modern CMOS cameras.

Geoptik AERTHA Dobsonian Platform with variable Latitude for Dobsonian Telescopes up to 24" Aperture / 80 kg

With the Dobson platform AERTHA, Geoptik offers a high-end solution for large Dobsonian telescopes. The platform is made of metal and convinces with precise workmanship, a powerful motor and precise tracking. A highlight of the platform is the adjustable latitude from 30° to 60° in 2° steps. Thus the Dobsonian can be aligned quite exactly to the celestial pole. The object (Moon, Planet, Nebula, Cluster, ...) remains reliably in the center of the eyepiece.

The Dobsonian platform can track objects up to one hour without slipping. This is a problem of many simpler platforms, especially at the beginning or end of the tracking time. Geoptik has solved this problem with the AERTHA platform.

This Dobsonian platform is one of the most powerful equatorial platforms. It carries Dobsonian telescopes up to 80 kg weight or up to 24" aperture. This provides you with a powerful tracking system even for very large Dobsonians.

Astrophotographic possibilities

Of course a Dobsonian platform can´t replace an equatorial mount, but the variable lattitude setting and the exact tracking give some photographic possibilities, especially with the modern CMOS cameras, for example from ZWO.

• Photography of moon and planets:
  Since the exposure times are very short, the results of equatorially mounted telescopes will not differ. Photography is much easier than with a normal Dobsonian, because the planet or moon crater remains in the center of the image even at high magnifications. You can do a nice series of shots.

• Deep-sky astrophotography (nebulae, star clusters and galaxies):
  With exact polar alignment, exposure times of up to 30 seconds are possible and, depending on the position of the object in the sky, even beyond. Modern CMOS cameras and even DSLRs offer remarkable results with very high ISO settings or gain preamplification. Simply expose, instead of 3-4x 10 minutes each, 30-40x each 20 seconds and you will wonder how many details you can already see. So you can plunge into the adventure of astrophotography with large telescopes.