Why Struggle?

Why do we put new users through the funnel of “my experience” and bad "advice?"

What do you call bad advice? Is bad advice telling new people to the hobby that they should not buy a telescope, but rather learn star charts and naked eye observing, and then binoculars and finally move to "push to" Dobsonian scopes, Telrads, pocket-charts and finally after we master all of this, you might move to wide field astrophotography and finally then and only then when you need a mount with autoguiding for astrophotography should you resort to relying on electronics to do your hobby? That's a lot to swallow and it happens way too often.

You need a parody to understand it better? Imagine if we told every truck driver in America today that they were no longer allowed to use GPS. They would have to rely on smoke signals to know the route from town to town, that all roads would cease to exist, there are no maps "quite yet," it is just you out there in the wilderness on your own trying to figure out which direction to move your load by using the moon and the sun.

Imagine if there were no radio, no internet, no world wide web, and that we had to rely on the pony express to haul information from A to B and before we could move to modern times, and that they had to master the telegraph, learn morse code and all. Only after going through all the pains that lead up to today, would they be allowed to send an email or get on the world wide web looking for the answer.

So why should astronomy be any different? We have electronics today. We have GoTo telescopes that use built in databases to align and guide themselves and yet we have these people who cling to 1840 and believe that because they went down the "hard road", that is "the only road?"

And before you think, James, you have lost your mind, let me say this, I have heard it all before. There is nothing new under the heavens. Think back in the days of the 1960's when you could never appreciate a telescope unless you built it yourself. You’ll learn nothing using a clock drive in the 70's. No to finder scopes and Telrads in the 80's. No to setting circles in any of those days, that was cheating. And you’ll never learn the sky using a GoTo telescope. Guess what? I call BS.

I have no problem recommending a scope that uses electronics today. They are there for a reason and it is not to stroke the ego of us old users who went through the pony express days of this hobby. Why should beginners be denied the same right to this technology that we ourselves use? Tell me exactly how many times have you been let down by the electronics on a telescope? If you are, then really you probably struggle to program the clock on your microwave and car because today it is virtually that simple.

I have seen hundreds of people on Cloudy Nights start right where you are at today and pick it up no problem. If you think those young guys imaging at star parties went through all of that to get there, you are delusional. They grew up with technology, apps, and even programming. They are not going to waste time looking at Sky Atlas 2000.

I think the only reason people make some of the recommendations that they do for some of the old ways is because they can’t stand to see what people of far lesser ability can do today with electronics. Some people love to knock the Seestar S50 and its users, and the reason for that is simple. It is because the S50 can deliver better astrophotography results in night one within one hour of a rank amateurs first sign in and usage than many of them have been able to achieve in 1000 hours of use 15 years ago when they entered this hobby and tried to take on digital imaging. They think because they had to struggle, we all need to struggle and I am here to tell you that today, the struggle is completely optional. And the myth that you will never learn the sky – it is simply not true. Not only can you learn the sky, but if you want to, you can learn it even faster and even better. I've watched people walk into astrophotography cold, and within 12 months they will be doing amazing things and working with PixInsight and more. Do not be afraid to go wiith the good stuff if that is indeed where you want to go.

Suffer on you old timers. Cling to your half truths and old methods. The world is changing. And you can either get on the train, or get run over by it. Within 5 years we will all be talking to our telescopes and telling it what to look at. For real.