Alt-azimuth mounts allow telescopes to move up and down and left to right, making them suitable for many types of telescopes. They are simple and easy to use, but not suitable for astrophotography without computer control. Alt-azimuth mounts are favored by amateur astronomers and large observatories due to their simplicity and economy. They also have other applications, such as solar panels and military hardware.
An alt-azimuth mount is a simple type of mount used for telescopes that allows movement along only two axes, hence this type of mount gets its name. A telescope on an alt-azimuth mount can move up and down, which is called altitude, and left to right, which is called azimuth. This type of mount is suitable for many types of telescopes and is used by many amateur astronomers as well as most large-scale observing instruments. An alt-azimuth mount is not suitable for astrophotography without computer control of its movement.
Telescope mounts come in two main types, altazimuth and equatorial. Altazimuth mounts move the telescope up and down and side to side, which means that to track the arc that celestial objects trace across the sky, the telescope must move along both axes at the same time and at different speeds. This is impossible without computer control, which means that without such systems, these mounts are not suitable for astrophotography, which requires long exposure times. Equatorial mounts allow your telescope to track celestial objects with motion along an axis, but are more complex and more expensive.
The simplicity and economy of alt-azimuth mounts make them a favorite with amateur astronomers as well as large observatories and their massive telescopes. Equatorial mounts for large telescopes are much more expensive and require more machinery and space than alt-azimuth mounts, so most large instruments in research settings use the alt-type mount. It is much cheaper and more space-efficient to add computer controls to an alt-azimuth-mounted telescope than it is to install and control an equatorial mount for the same instrument.
Most amateur astronomers use a telescope with an alt-azimuth mount as these mounts are simple and easy to use. Movement is simple and easy to control. The simplest alt-azimuth mounts are controlled by simply pushing the telescope by hand or by moving a handle attached to the mount. The best mounts of this type have fine controls for precision movement, usually a type of dial connected to a gear mechanism. With improvements in technology, computer controls for alt-azimuth mounts on telescopes intended for use by amateur astronomers are becoming more common as the hardware and software required for such setups decrease in price.
These types of media have other applications as well. Solar panels are sometimes mounted with computer-controlled motorized alt-azimuth mounts so they can be programmed to track the sun. Military hardware, such as missile launchers, vehicle-mounted rocket launchers, and anti-aircraft weapons also sometimes use alt-azimuth mounts.
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