Hi All,
Check out the industrial/robotic look of the new Gemini friction drive mount: http://www.geminitelescope.com/efric...an-equatorial/
Even the saddle plate knobs are an impressive collection of nuts, bolts & spacers!
Friction drive mounts have been around for decades, but unfortunately they all so far have suffered from poor tracking due contaminated thrust surfaces over time. Little bits of grit etc. get in, eventually cause random spikes in the drive rate. They require a surgically clean environment to work well....not something you'd have when exposed to the elements.
My first thought looking at it was how many spiders would be living in it within a week?
Too open. In the last year with those hot days with high winds whipping up inland red dust I was amazed at how much red dust got on everything.
It needs to be covered properly to be weather tight at least against dust.
The Fornax Lightrack 11 is a nice nightscape tracker that uses a friction drive.
It has very low PE but with trackers its more about achieving a decent polar alignment than it is PE unless you start imaging at 300mm.
