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I am fortunate enough to have had first light tonight, the beast is sat in the dome with random bits of metal zip-tied to the counterweights to give it enough mass for counterballancing the Meade!
I have to admit to being quite stunned by the performance out of the box. After dead-reconing, I switched it on, it homed (Pointed to the pole), asked me for time date and location then I one star aligned onto Antares which was damn close. It obviously knows what type of mount it is and worked the rest out for itself. I shouldnt be so amazed, I do have Agro Navis, but I have become used to the miseries of the LX200.
And its whisper quiet too, even at max slew the mount makes the classic Skywatcher steppermotor whine, but in a more understated way. Tracking seems great out of the box, but I have to sort out pempro before I can fully test that.
I can only compare it with the performance of the LX200, and can confirm that it dumps on it from a height. I shall miss the simplicity of a fork mount, but i'm pretty happy with my new toy so far...
BTW, its top fun loostening the clutches and repositioning the scope by hand whist watching the dome fighting to keep up. I love encoders!
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