Skywatcher EQ6-R or Celestron CGX ?

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

Robert,
Quote""
the encoders are only good enough for visual acquisition not for tracking accuracy
""
That's all the encoders do - provide a positional signal - nothing to do with tracking accuracy.

[Ice (Ivan)]

Cheers Robert, You'll have to give us a report on the CGX once you've had a play I think I'm going to bite the bullet as well and go for the CGX, Lots of good feedback from lots of people


Cheers Ivan

[Ice (Ivan)]

Originally Posted by robomort

just went through this same dilemma. Was leaning toward AZEQ for the dual encoders but it seems the encoders are only good enough for visual acquisition not for tracking accuracy. It had some nice mechanical design in there too, pity the EQ6R did not inherit them. I also agonised over the lack of EQmod for the Celestron mounts. sure does limit what you can do unless you keep the hand controller in the loop. In the end I coughed for the CGX for the extra capacity, home sensors, soft/hard axis stops. Mount arrives today

Hey Robert, do you have any reports on your CGX yet, I'm interested in the polar alignment feature and accuracy ?


Cheers Ivan

[PaulWBaker (Paul)]

Howdy. I have had the CGX for a year now. Love it. Easy to use. Stable for me. I use the ASPA feature and it is pretty close. Then I use PHD2 to drift align. I get guiding of <0.5sec RAD and Dec. See AstroBin (PaulWBaker) images attached - hopefully the links work.

https://astrob.in/406636/0/rawthumb/...t.jpg?insecure

https://astrob.in/406637/0/rawthumb/...t.jpg?insecure

[glend (Glen)]

I bought one of the first CGXs (in December 2016) from Bintel. Great imaging mount, guides wonderfully with low RMS error. Mine sits on a pier in my observatory, so always stays perfectly aligned. I have taken it to the field twice, but imho, at my age, it's too heavy to really be a field mount, but if I was younger maybe I would think differently. I owned a NEQ6 Pro with belt drive mod previously, it would really struggle imaging with a 16kg load despite the advertised capacity. The CGX doesn't notice that sort of load, good to image at 25kg in my experience.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

I have the Orion Atlas version of the AZEQ6 and would make a couple of comments.

First up, while I am imaging with it now I used it visually extensively and doing that I used it exclusively in Alt-Az mode so I do not consider it a gimmick. The dual encoders were also a godsend there as if you wanted to change targets you could just unlock the clutches and move the mount manually in much less time than commanding a slew.

For imaging, I find it really easy to deal with via EQMOD, and I have not plugged the hand controller into it all year, tracking I think is as good as you can ask for the price.

The altitude adjustment is streets ahead of the EQ6 and they should redesign those to include it. But they should also tweak it to put a much finer thread on the altitude jackscrew, it really is a bit too coarse for the purpose so what should be a nice progressive adjustment becomes a series of tiny little tweaks. The clutch discs also compres over time and depending on setup may cause the mount to bind up and have all sorts of tracking issues. Fixed in my case by making shims to restore clearance.

Would I buy another one? Probably. It is hard to complain when you can get round stars in a 30 minute sub (In good conditions) at 2200mm focal length with an OAG, but I would probably look up a class weight wise if I were buying now and budget did not stop me.