Figure 7

Figure 7: The Fork Equatorial Mount

The Fork Alt-azimuth Mount

Recently manufacturers of Schmidt-Cassegrainians and Maksutov-Cassegrainians have started offering a type of fork alt-azimuth mount instead of the fork equatorial. It looks just like a fork equatorial mount, except the fork is always vertical rather than being parallel with the Earth’s rotational axis. With the advent of cheap computers it is now possible to have a practical motorized tracking system for this type of alt-azimuth mount. In fact, many mounts on later model telescopes can be converted in seconds from fork equatorial to fork alt-azimuth and vice versa.