Been using a SkyCommander for many years now. That controller is far less advanced than the Argo Navis but I'll discuss it anyway as it has been very good to me for many years. I have a current one. There was an older model from over 6 years ago so avoid that one.
I'm going to go into more detail on align. For any of these alt/az dobs you want to take care in choice of initial two cal stars. Try to choose stars that have significantly different Alt, AZ, RA and DEC where alt is greater than 20 degrees and less than 70 degrees (avoid horizon and zenith hole for different reasons). The better you do this the better your alignment. If you think about it you want many 'tics' of the alt and az encoders and you want the model of the sky to also have much space between the RA and DEC so your accuracy in the conversions is far better. You need to take care to do the cal carefully with object dead center on fairly high mag if you want good results. The SkyCommander does have a 'sync to this object' function that I use a lot if I am working a specific section of sky or am going to look for something obscure I will generally sync to something brighter and easy to center in that area to increase finding accuracy.
The device greatly increases my enjoyment as I don't have to hunt all night. I do turn it off from time to time just to stay in practice for hunting. It rarely lands the target dead center but generally hits the target if my FOV is 30' or more so I use a 'finder eyepiece' then higher mag.
My dob has tracking once aligned but that is not this topic so I will only say that for galaxy fields or careful study of objects that is priceless although expensive. (you get what you pay for).
The SkyCommander has a clumbsy membrane keyboard with only a few keys that one can get used to but it does work and I operate it's non-lite keyboard mostly from memory of it's 8 key positions and feedback from the two line LCD display. There is no argument that the Argo Navis is superior in it's input/output interfaces and dial.
The Sky Commander is small and light and as such moves between my 18" and 12" dob easily and quickly velcros in it's place. Battery life is very good but I tend to plug it into 12V so don't notice that much anymore.
SkyCommander gets 'sluggish' in very cold climate so if you are always in the ice cold I suggest avoiding this controller. It is like it's clock for the microprocessor is an 'R/C' clock and not crystal controlled. It's time of day clock of course has to be the classic 'watch crystal' so must be accurate to track but alas, I digress into geek-speak.
It has many common catalogs like NGC, IC, APN, Hickson and more but is lacking UGC and PGC (Pgc I can understand but it would be really nice to have UGC). It has a very simple low-resolution set of 99 objects that you key in RA/Dec and this I have found quite valuable to put in objects that are not in it's catalogs. The saved objects in the 99 only have room on the display for a number and no name so 'Pal 15' I have to remember or write down (and loose the paper later) or recognize the RA/DEC to know which one it is for example. I have about 20 of these used and I am very glad for this feature even though only numeric name. I often quickly put in a new one for obscure object and just leave it in there.
Never get rid of your telrad and finder of course but a device such as this makes your observing sessions more productive in general for dim and difficult targets that don't pop out in a finder (LIKE every darn thing mentioned on DSF! LOL)
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Originally Posted by Marko
