Altazimuth mount
An altazimuth or alt-azimuth mount is a simple two-axis mount for supporting and rotating an instrument about two mutually perpendicular axes; one vertical and the other horizontal. Rotation about the vertical axis varies the azimuth (compass bearing) of the pointing direction of the instrument. Rotation about the horizontal axis varies the altitude (angle of elevation) of the pointing direction.
These mounts are used, for example, with telescopes, cameras, radio antennas, heliostat mirrors, solar panels, and guns and similar weapons.
Several names are given to this kind of mount, including altitude-azimuth, azimuth-elevation and various abbreviations thereof. A gun turret is essentially an alt-azimuth mount for a gun, with some armour to protect the weapon and its operators.
Astronomical telescope altazimuth mounts
When used as an astronomical telescope mount, the biggest advantage of an alt-azimuth mount is the simplicity of its mechanical design. The primary disadvantage is its inability to follow astronomical objects in the night sky as the Earth spins on its axis the way that an equatorial mount can. Equatorial mounts only need to be rotated about a single axis, at a constant rate, to follow the rotation of the night sky (diurnal motion). Altazimuth mounts need to be rotated about both axes at variable rates, achieved via microprocessor based two-axis drive systems, to track equatorial motion. This imparts an uneven rotation to the field of view that also has to be corrected via a microprocessor based counter rotation system.[1] On smaller telescopes an equatorial platform[2] is sometimes used to add a third "polar axis" to overcome these problems, providing an hour or more of motion in the direction of right ascension to allow for astronomical tracking. The design also does not allow for the use of mechanical setting circles to locate astronomical objects although modern digital setting circles have removed this shortcoming.
Current applications
Typical current applications of altazimuth mounts include:
- Research telescopes
- Mounts for very large telescopes. In the largest telescopes the mass and cost of an equatorial mount is prohibitive and they have been superseded by computer controlled Altazimuth mounts.[3] The simple structure of an alt-azimuth mount allows significant cost reductions, in spite of the additional cost associated with the more complex tracking and image-orienting mechanisms.[4] An altazimuth mount also reduces the cost in the dome structure covering the telescope since the simplified motion of the telescope means the structure can be more compact.[5]
- Amateur astronomical telescopes
- Beginner telescopes. Altazimuth mounts are cheap and simple to use.
- Dobsonian telescopes. John Dobson popularized a simplified altazimuth mount design for Newtonian reflectors because of its ease of construction; Dobson's innovation was to use non-machined parts for the mount that could be found in any hardware store such as plywood, formica, and plastic plumbing parts combined with modern materials such as nylon or teflon.
- "Goto telescopes". It has often proved more convenient to build a simple alt-azimuth mount and use a computer to manipulate both axes to track an object, than to build a more mechanically complex equatorial mount that employs only a single motor. When astrophotography is involved, a further motor has to be used to rotate the camera to match the field of view for long exposure photographs.
References
- ^ Mahra, H. S.; Karkera, B. N. (1985). "Field rotation with altazimuth mounting telescope". Bull. Astron. Soc. India 13: 88.
- ^ Vogel, Reiner (2007), Circle Segment Platform (link from his English language page), http://www.reinervogel.net/index_e.html, retrieved 13 March 2011
- ^ Pierre Léna, François Lebrun, François Mignard, Observational astrophysics, page 147
- ^ Dawe, J. A.; Watson, F. G. (1985). "Design for a large altazimuth Schmidt telescope". Occas. Rep. R. Obs., Edinb. 16: 15–18.
- ^ Siegfried Marx, Werner Pfau, Astrophotography with the Schmidt telescope, page 18
See also