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Old 19-10-2019, 10:56 AM
Startrek (Martin)
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Skywatcher announce new EQ8R and EQ8Rh mounts

Just saw Dylan O’Donnell announce the new Skywatcher EQ8R and EQ8Rh mounts
They look like a quality upgrade from the old EQ8, plenty of good features
I’d love to own one but more suited to a observatory not really a set up put away option in the backyard or remote site, a bit to heavy for me , my EQ6R is my limit and very happy with its performance
Anyone one else see the announcement ?
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Old 19-10-2019, 11:08 AM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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I saw it shortly after. While they are pretty costly it does cover one of my EQ8 gripes, in that the looked like a pretty decent thing aside from the balance issues with motor placement, but suffered from the same score of zero for cable management as almost everything else on the market.


I assume with internal cabling in a GEM they must have physical axis limit stop to keep from destroying the internal cabling.
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Old 19-10-2019, 11:47 AM
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Nikolas (Nik)
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Saw the launch, I love Dylan's work but far out they are expensive!
Do they come with built in GPS? Also there is nowhere to mount a polar scope or polemaster so you'd need to improvise. For something that expensive one would think they would come up with a polar alignment camera or even built in guiding somehow. Yes they are more designed for observatories but even so.
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Old 19-10-2019, 12:03 PM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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There is a bolt on polarscope bracket for the EQ8, presumably that carries over to the new version.



I think for the price I would want to see a few other early adopters before I bought one. I would not need the payload of the EQ8 and can still hear a CEM60EC calling my name I think. I might still look at the new EQ8 but I would want to see one in action and get my hands on it myself for a play.
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Old 19-10-2019, 01:23 PM
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RobF (Rob)
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And the Skywatcher CQ350 is lurking in the wings for next year too, supposedly placed between EQ6 and EQ8 performance and size wise:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/3...her-cq350-pro/
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  #6  
Old 19-10-2019, 05:05 PM
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Merlin66 (Ken)
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Nick,
I know it doesn’t come with the encoders....could be the same for the GPS.
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  #7  
Old 19-10-2019, 05:09 PM
glend (Glen)
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I admit I am cautious about these sort of launches. It hasn't been too long ago that Dylan was spuiking Celestron products, the CGX and CGX/L were heavily promoted by him. Do your own research and don't be an early adopter.
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Old 22-10-2019, 08:07 AM
RugbyRene (Rene)
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I went to the launch at Bintel. I can say that the mount is a beast. Managed to have a play and it is very well built. If I had an obs I'd be buying one. Alas it's not for the nightly set-up/tear-down.

And for what it is, I'd say the pricing is very competitive.
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  #9  
Old 22-10-2019, 08:53 AM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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I am a little of two minds. I like the CEM60EC, but the new design of the EQ8 overcomes a lot of the compromises that had me looking toward the ioptron, with a much bigger payload to boot. I presume the EQ8 still has manually adjusted worm mesh which would count against it to a degree.

I am not buying another mount until at least some time next year, plenty of time for the early adopters to find the issues that did not turn up in pre release testing.

Regards Dylan and promoting Celestron stuff. Dylan is officially part of "Team Celestron" but it also pretty heavily involved with Bintel so it does not surprise me that he was involved in this launch, Celestron don't quite have anything in this payload weight class anyway.


https://www.celestron.com/blogs/team...dylan-odonnell
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Old 22-10-2019, 12:30 PM
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codemonkey (Lee)
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Interesting products... definitely headed in the right direction.

I'm not entirely convinced I'd want a gear-driven mount with a high res encoder on RA but not declination. When you're imaging at 0.5"/px like I am, very small amounts of backlash become very big problems. When you guide at < 1x sidereal on RA backlash isn't a problem, but for declination it can be a serious problem.

I'd be of a mind to stick the encoder on the declination axis instead of RA and rely on modelling to solve for repeatable errors in RA.

I've owned a few mounts now, some driven entirely by belts, some entirely by gears and some using a combination. I don't think I'll ever buy another gear driven mount without a high quality encoder on DEC.

Personally if I needed a high capacity mount in that rough price range I'd be leaning towards a Mesu over this latest offering from SW, although I do worry about those friction drives in our climate...
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  #11  
Old 28-10-2019, 01:21 PM
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I've got one question....is anybody going to be stupid enough to pay prices like their asking for these low quality built china mounts?no really It's an honest question...and the BS continues.
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  #12  
Old 28-10-2019, 01:58 PM
CeratodusDuck (George)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by atalas View Post
I've got one question....is anybody going to be stupid enough to pay prices like their asking for these low quality built china mounts?no really It's an honest question...and the BS continues.
Probably. Most didn’t learn from the dreadful EQ8. The cycle of “Gotta have more junk” will continue, because maybe they can hang 8 scopes off it simultaneously rather than 6. Win win SMH
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Old 28-10-2019, 03:10 PM
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Originally Posted by CeratodusDuck View Post
Probably. Most didn’t learn from the dreadful EQ8. The cycle of “Gotta have more junk” will continue, because maybe they can hang 8 scopes off it simultaneously rather than 6. Win win SMH
Yes,agreed....still,I do believe they play an important role in the low end market but,the prices for the EQ8-R and EQ8-RH are they sure they want sales?

I remember quite a few years back now ioptron releasing some big mount which was priced so high you could buy an AP 900 for the same price never did hear or read of anyone buying one....wonder why

Oh well,I guess the price of slave labour has increased.....I'm sure the middle man's not trying to screw us.
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Old 28-10-2019, 04:52 PM
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lazjen (Chris)
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Why would you design a mount to have the hand controller plugged into the moving part of the mount?
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  #15  
Old 28-10-2019, 05:24 PM
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atalas
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Cheaper to manufacture that way.

Still,doesn't beat the stupidity of designing a telescope with the focuser attached to the mirror cell.....bet they thought they were clever with that one
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  #16  
Old 28-10-2019, 05:47 PM
CeratodusDuck (George)
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Originally Posted by atalas View Post
Cheaper to manufacture that way.

Still,doesn't beat the stupidity of designing a telescope with the focuser attached to the mirror cell.....bet they thought they were clever with that one
Come now sir, noone ever accused Celestron or Meade of being clever.
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Old 28-10-2019, 08:40 PM
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Come now sir, noone ever accused Celestron or Meade of being clever.
good one.
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  #18  
Old 29-10-2019, 09:16 AM
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vlazg (George)
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[QUOTE=The_bluester;1450708]I am a little of two minds. I like the CEM60EC, but the new design of the EQ8 overcomes a lot of the compromises that had me looking toward the ioptron, with a much bigger payload to boot.




i am also looking at a mount with a heavier payload, the CEM 60 EC was one i was considering but lots of problems seem to occur with guiding and for longer exposures it appears better to turn off the encoder so maybe the non encoder mount might be a better option. ( see Lee's comments )
The new Losmandy G11GT might be worth considering.
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Old 29-10-2019, 05:59 PM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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Well, it will be at least sometime next year so hopefully I can let someone else be the new EQ8 guinea pigs.
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Old 05-06-2020, 03:46 PM
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xthestreams (Paul)
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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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