losmandy gm8

[suma126]

HI can anyone tell me do i turn power off when pushing it to differnt part of the sky or can i leave power on with out burning the motors .

[Omaroo]

G'Day Shane

No - you don't need to turn anything off. Losmandy use Porter slip ring clutches on both the GM8 and G11 mounts. These are designed to be left "nipped" up, but not overly tight, so that you can simply move the head in either RA or Dec axes by hand against them. The clutches are designed to slip as long as you haven't tightened them so much they can't move at all. If your scope and equipment is balanced, the clutches don't need to be left very tight at all, and the motors will still be able to make the head move in RA for continuous tracking. It shouldn't take too much effort to overcome the clutch friction if you slew by hand. Once you find the right clutch pressure just leave them set that way, and slew by just pushing yourself, or under control of the hand controller when required.

[suma126]

THANKS for you help now i need to sort out tracking errors

[Omaroo]

Tracking errors? Are you first achieving proper polar alignment? Are you autoguiding or intend to?

[suma126]

ON polar scope or view finder need to save some more money. AFTER the price jumped from $2600-$3100 and 4 mouth wait .But build quality is very very good so it is Worth the wait.

[Bassnut]

Well, you might as well power down/up before/after pushing it, it wont know where it is :P (is that causing the tracking errors?).

[Omaroo]

Fred - at $3k, his GM8 is non-Gemini....so it duddun't matta...:whistle:

[Bassnut]

oops, OK. Sheesh, but then Gemini would be an urgent ugrade then wouldnt it ? :P

[Omaroo]

hehe.. Nah - a great opportunity to fit a couple of encoders and grab an Argo Navis! :)

[Bassnut]

wha, like as in push-to, mmm , good for dobs, seems somewhat less that optimum for a G8.

[Omaroo]

I guess that you're either a go-to guy or not! :) I'm not. I prefer the speed and quietness of push-to any day, which is what my G11 is going to be soon. As they say - horses for courses. It's also a money matter for most. You can get the GM8 for (retail) $2,950. In Gemini form it's $4,895. The G11 is $4,150 and $6,150 respectively.

The unit will work brilliantly in standard Digital Drive form until one is ready to either spend the extra whallop to go Gemini later on, or for less than half of that upgrade, get the encoders and an Argo. At least then you can buy the cheaper option early, get up and running with autoguiding (for which you do need that silly double adapter for the handbox/guide cable into the CCD port), and you're set for photography.

I must apologise to Shane, from which we have hijacked his thread.... :(