Hi
Sorry this is so long but many of you replied to my earlier post so I think you deserve a considered response.
I have collected my new Losmandy G11 from the good folk at Bintel here in Sydney.
After having a quick 3 evenings worth of use, one inside, two outside, here are my thoughts.
By the way I can only do any comparison to other mounts with my belt modded (etc) EQ6, because that's the only other mount I have had.
I also need to remember that the G11 costs almost three times the EQ6.
Anyway here goes.
Unpacking the three boxes it is very apparent that the G11 is more substantial in construction and materials used compared to the EQ6.
The tripod is rigid and reasonably easy to level. Placing the mount on the tripod is very simple, much better than with the EQ6.
No need to change at least one of the azimuth adjustment bolts each time when installing or removing the mount.
Installed the Gemini controller using a Cat5 cable. Installed the ASCOM drivers, Stellarium, Stellariumscope etc on my Win 10 laptop.
Set up the hand controller with my position inspace and got ready for turn on.
Turn on, everything connects. OK lets slew to here. Wow, what a noise, enough to wake the living dead if I slew when outside.
The EQ6 was very quiet after the belt mod. So I adjusted the slew speed from 800 to 400. Still more, much more, noise than the EQ6 but acceptable.
No noise when tracking. Set up my limits, important with the G11 due to the motor positions. Default limits are very scary.
Played around while still inside and went to bed ready for outside next time.
Outside, time to set up and balance etc.
The counter weight shaft is very solid and does not rock about like others I can mention.
First night spent doing it all in the dark and making sure there is no crashes, both hardware and software.
Calibrating with PHD2 no problem. Polar alignment, with PHD2, was much easier than the EQ6 as the adjustment "levers" on the G11 are a joy to use.
Strange that, as I will not have to do much adjusting in the future.
Second night outside.
Polar aligning using PHD2, did not take long. If you can put the tripod back in the same place each time (mark the ground) very little adjustment needs to be made to polar align.
This is important to me as I need to put up and pull down each time.
Now that I am polar aligned let's slew here. Wow, no adjustment required, dead centre, never had that before.
OK how does the G11 track for 10 or 12 minutes straight out of the box. Looks good. See image included.
So, what do I think. Using my limited experience so far, I believe that I made the correct choice in purchasing a G11.
Cost was an issue for me and for what I was able to spend I have got what I was after.
A mount I can put up, use without strange issues, and put away without worrying about what might happen next time.
Thank you for your considered thoughts re my mount dilemma.
Greg
Sounds like you are going to have a lot of fun with your new mount! Tracking does look pretty smooth which is what you want. Large Periodic Error is not an issue as long as it is smooth Something that I cannot say the EQ6 always does so well, can be a bit jittery.
I'm using a Atik Titan as a guide camera. This is connected through my QSI 683WGS OAG onto my William Optics FLT132 refractor, which has a focal lenth of 740mm (with the reducer).
I have a QSI683WSG which has the off axis intergrated guider so the guide focal length is correctly set in PHD2.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryD
I'm using a Atik Titan as a guide camera. This is connected through my QSI 683WGS OAG onto my William Optics FLT132 refractor, which has a focal lenth of 740mm (with the reducer).
Cheers Greg. Assuming the focal reducer is before the OAG, this means the OAG is sampling at 2.06"/px, but the guide chart thinks it is approx 0.2"/px as Ray pointed out. This means the guide chart looks approx 10x better than it should, making the 0.09" RMS actually closer to 0.9", which seems much more likely. This suggests either the focal length in PHD is incorrect, or the pixel size.
End of the day, it's all just numbers, if you get the results you want then the number doesn't matter, but the clarity might help others make decisions.
Thank you for your explanation of the "numbers".
I must admit that I don't have the knowledge to dig so far into all this info.
For me, I am happy with the setting up and ease of use with the G11 and I know the mount will be slightly better with PEC.
As long as I can get round stars with 20 minute subs I'll remain happy.
As I mentioned before I could achieve this with the EQ6, sometimes, but not always. I spent the money to remove a frequent source of frustration each time I set up.
Cheers
Same reasoning for my upgrade, I have gotten pretty round stars with a 60min sub with my EQ6 BUT it just isn't overly repeatable Sometimes I can get 20 min subs with perfect stars for hours on end, other nights it just jitters all over the place. There are a lot more good nights than bad but the bad ones are really frustrating.
OK how does the G11 track for 10 or 12 minutes straight out of the box. Looks good. See image included.
Sounds like you are happy with the mount regardless
Because some are considering purchasing the same mount it is reasonably important when posting such illustrative graphs, to make sure it is clear what it is actually illustrating and that scales used are actually accurate and reflective of the system used to acquire them...otherwise, it means essentially zip. Finally, is this a tracking or guiding graph?..two completely different things.
I thought it was pretty obvious that it is a guiding graph.
By the way I am not trying to push any brand or type of mount, nor am I saying that mine is better than yours.
After people very kindly responded to my earlier "mount dilemma post" I felt obliged to let them know my, albeit brief, experience with the G11.
I think it will work for me, it may not for others.
I know some people have very strong views on this site but these opinions
should take into account that many of us do not see our hobby as a contest of who has the biggest, or most expensive equipment. We are all enjoying the night sky which at it's most basic level costs nothing.
I appreciate the amazing images that are posted here and know I will never be able to achieve similar results with my set up. That doesn't prevent me from enjoying my hobby and learning from the many generous posts on this site.
Thanks
I reckon its a great write up being a proud owner of a G11 with gem 2 my self I think it was the best upgrade if ever did very happy with mine as you are
well done and thanks for sharing your experience .
cheers Pete
I thought it was pretty obvious that it is a guiding graph.
By the way I am not trying to push any brand or type of mount, nor am I saying that mine is better than yours.
After people very kindly responded to my earlier "mount dilemma post" I felt obliged to let them know my, albeit brief, experience with the G11.
I think it will work for me, it may not for others.
I know some people have very strong views on this site but these opinions
should take into account that many of us do not see our hobby as a contest of who has the biggest, or most expensive equipment. We are all enjoying the night sky which at it's most basic level costs nothing.
I appreciate the amazing images that are posted here and know I will never be able to achieve similar results with my set up. That doesn't prevent me from enjoying my hobby and learning from the many generous posts on this site.
Thanks
I agree totally with you Harry and I wasn't trying to make a contest of it at all . I am seriously thinking of getting a G11 later in the year for some wide field work, so some accurate unambiguous quantitative feedback would be most helpful, just so I (and others I am sure) can compare apples with apples Peter Ward made some incredible claims about the capabilities of the "new" G11's abilities in that other thread, which he was unable to defend and I would really like to know if it is all true
OK, it seems I may have put incorrect info into PHD2.
My setup is as follows:
Off axis guider in the QSI683
132mm refractor f7, 925mm focal length has a 0.8 reducer so 740mm f5.6.
Atik Titan as guide camera 7.4um pixels.
So in PHD2 in enter 740mm focal length 7.4um pixels.
Any comments to let me know if this is wrong and how to fix it would be gratefully received.
that should do it. thanks for persevering Greg - as Mike said, we just wanted to be able to compare the data you published with other info, to see how good the latest version of the mount really is. Reliable knowledge of that sort can be very helpful to everyone. Thanks.
That's how it is in PHD2, 740mm focal length 7.4um pixels, for that guiding graph.
So, with the published graph, the maximum on the vertical scale should read 10 arc sec rather than 1 and the guide error is 0.9 arcsec rms rather than 0.09.
With the revised input, phd2 should now indicate that sort of result in future. That is good guiding for average conditions.
