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I decided to swap out my EQ6-R for the EQ8-R for a number of reasons, mainly to do with giving me a long-term option for looking at a RASA11 in the hope that I could one day be as cool as Dylan :-)
But seriously, 25kg doesn't go far, especially when you want some headroom for things like long FL work, so made the decision and sought help from the folks at Sidereal Trading who were able to hook me up right out of stock as well as put me in touch with someone who happened to be looking for a lightly used "new" mount, which was a great bonus (those guys are amazing).
There's no doubt that the EQ8-R is a huge step up not just in terms of load capacity and stability;
- good ergonomics in terms of handles for lifting up onto the pier (or heaven forbid a field tripod)
- whisper quiet motors and belt drive train - quite than the high-pitch whine of the EQ6-R
- "decent" adjustment controls for polar alignment, I managed to get to within 2 arc seconds after 3-4 iterations, with none of the jumpiness you get with the EQ6-R's alt control screw
- AUTOHOME! as a remote observatory (outside and three flights of stairs away at night) I never realised I'd be so happy to watch a scope automatically home itself without the hassle of losing accuracy due to additional encoders. Great feature, every scope should have it - I just wish it worked with INDI/EKOS (see below)
While it's a well thought through design - there are a few issues with it no doubt;
- WHY put the power input on the moving part of the counterweight shaft when you've got a set of ports at the rear of the mount?
- same for, well actually all of them - ST4, handset and the mount control USB control ports are all on the moving RA lobe/shaft, just seems daft or perhaps there were other constraints I haven't thought about (such as wear and tear/repair)
- the dovetail plate clamp for the scope is sturdy but unless I've done something wrong, the power and USB ports are of the wrong end (at least to my thinking), so you're routing cables back along the OTA - better than dragging but it's not exactly clever when you consider the plate's rear end has AUX ports that I don't even use going empty - flip that!)
- the clutch locks aren't confidence inspiring and both axis have a tendency to slip with even a moderate nudge of the OTA, surprising given teh big deal they made about them. Having said that I am locking them down a bit harder now in the hopes that maybe I am just being too tentative in activating them
- as noted above, the Autohome feature does not work with the current INDI drivers, which expect to see the Aux encoders for that function to work, logged the bug report today
Tracking stability seems to be decent, but to be transparent - unlike the skies recently here in Melbourne - it saw first light last night and other than a really lovely PA, I have not had a chance to optimise or run PPEC so my "out of the box" +/- 1.5 arc second average tracking feels pretty good to me and certainly exceeds the result I was getting from (what was a relatively lightly loaded most days) EQ6-R
What I am not able to comment on is how much of a difference the pier tripod vs. bundled tripod of the EQ6-R makes, my sense is that it is contributing at least 0.5 arcsecs of that stability.
Lots more learning to do - the skies look like being relatively clear again tonight, the high level cloud and Mr Moon won't be helping with testing guiding and tracking but might be enough time there to switch on PPEC training and see what gives.
Happy to answer any questions other than from my partner asking "is this new?" :-S
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