IOptron GEM45?

[thercman (Greg)]

I'm wondering if any of you have this mount any what your thoughts are regarding its quality and tracking ability. I'm planning to put it on the William Optics 800 mm Mortar Tri-Pier to hold my C11. I will be using it primarily for planetary imaging...

My other rig is a Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro. How does it compare?

[Wavytone]

Greg,

Thee are a very few iOptron mounts in Australia as iOptron has no significant presence here and if anything goes wrong with it, it’s basically an expensive boat anchor. Conversely local support and spare parts are available here for Skywatcher and Celestron mounts. You can also DIY as there are enough around that you could cannibalise parts from another mount, if need be.

On the other hand the Losmandy gear is DIY - they sell all the assemblies so you can DIY maintenance/repairs, which can’t be said of iOptron.

For this reason I didn’t buy an iEQ45 a few years ago, and instead bought an AZEQ6 instead.

[CeratodusDuck (George)]

iOptron is VERY hit and miss quality wise. Some get good ones, far too many get dreadful ones.

Me - I won't even consider them. It's the QC issue and the extreme difficulty many dealers report dealing with iOptron that shy many dealers from bothering with them. SW on the other hand has been nothing but great to deal with by all accounts. In my 2 dealing with Tasco directly about SW, they were nothing short of fantastic and prompt response.

[raymo]

I'm curious to know why you are interested in a mount with almost exactly
the same max payload as your present one which can do all you will ask of it,
especially as you don't even need high end tracking accuracy for planetary AP.
raymo