Astronomy Hints #9 Altazimuth vs. Equatorial

One factor that must be taken into consideration whenever you buy a new telescope is the kind of mount it has. When it comes down to it, there are essentially 3 designs: Altazimuth, Equatorial, and Dobsonian. For the purposes of this astronomy hint we will only be talking about Alazimuth and Equatorial as Dobsonian behaves like an Altazimuth telescope mount even if it in no way resembles one.

First let us look at a telescope on an Altazimuth mount: