Mach1 GTO

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

Hi all,

A few days ago a gentlemen from FedEx knocked at our door and he left four boxes for us...

I am yet to test the new mount in the field, but so far the mount connected to my laptop right away and everything seems to be working. Will need to tidy up the cables. Precision balancing is super easy with new gearboxes and I will probably get rid of one of the cords by controlling the mount wirelessly. Looks like I will need to learn a few new tricks, such as meridian and horizon limits, imaging past the meridian and making a pointing model. But what I am the most excited about is the prospect of superior tracking and thus accurate guiding.

As you all can probably imagine, I am VERY excited and really looking forward to a clear night.

Suavi (somehow still with two kidneys...)

P.S. I never ever thought that one day I will have one of these mounts...

[RickS (Rick)]

Congrats, Suavi! I hope you haven't doomed us to six months of cloudy & wet weather

[Atmos (Colin)]

Beautiful piece of new kit!
As nice as the EQ6 is it isn't until you upgrade that you realise how good good can be

P.S.
Hopefully the new mount will suck the clouds from us Southerners

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Looks a beauty Suavi

[RobF (Rob)]

OOOOOOOooooooooo!!!!!

[atalas]

Very cool Suavi!

[mountainjoo (Jerome)]

Congrats! Just out of interest, what made you choose this over other premium mounts in the same price bracket?

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Top mount Suavi and a great looking setup, I feel the excitement

Mike

[gregbradley]

A great buy!

You'll never look back.

I use 2 things to control the mount from hitting the tripod. A free program called mount watcher and another one which is the AP timer. I set both. The Mount watcher works like a SB mount where software limits cause tracking to stop. Usually 5 degrees off the meridian.

Greg.

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

Originally Posted by RickS

Congrats, Suavi! I hope you haven't doomed us to six months of cloudy & wet weather

Thank you Rick! Just to clarify - recent heat wave is a natural phenomena due to a change in seasons...

Originally Posted by Atmos

Beautiful piece of new kit!
As nice as the EQ6 is it isn't until you upgrade that you realise how good good can be

P.S.
Hopefully the new mount will suck the clouds from us Southerners

Thank you Colin! Yeah, relationship with an EQ6 is not always a smooth ride (pun intended)...

Originally Posted by Camelopardalis

Looks a beauty Suavi

Thank you!

Originally Posted by RobF

OOOOOOOooooooooo!!!!!

Oh YEAH!

Originally Posted by atalas

Very cool Suavi!

Thank you Louie!

Originally Posted by mountainjoo

Congrats! Just out of interest, what made you choose this over other premium mounts in the same price bracket?

Thank you Jerome.

It is a bit difficult to say what exactly swayed me towards this mount. It was a mix of:

-> time-proven design (Mach 1 has been around for about 10 years and it has been further refined over that time), and although no equipment is fault-free, the vast majority of Mach-1 (or any AP equipment) users are very pleased with it

-> theoretically (I have not tested that yet) it has excellent tracking out of the box (as other premium mounts) and the new gearboxes are a breeze to adjust if needed.

-> it is portable (I need to set up for each session)

-> it is a mount made by Astro-Physics

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Top mount Suavi and a great looking setup, I feel the excitement

Mike

Thank you Mike! If it performs half as well as your mount I will be happy!

Originally Posted by gregbradley

A great buy!

You'll never look back.

I use 2 things to control the mount from hitting the tripod. A free program called mount watcher and another one which is the AP timer. I set both. The Mount watcher works like a SB mount where software limits cause tracking to stop. Usually 5 degrees off the meridian.

Greg.

Thank you Greg. I must admit that it was your feedback, and from several other AP users, that influenced me to go for this mount.

I will have a look at the software you have mentioned, thank you!

I also got the APCC Pro and it has the ability to set limits that are very flexible and can be fine-tuned to one's particular set-up. Will get to that one day

[codemonkey (Lee)]

Sooo jealous! Wanna park it in my dome? I'll even let you use it on occasion ;-)

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

Originally Posted by codemonkey

Sooo jealous! Wanna park it in my dome? I'll even let you use it on occasion ;-)

Thanks Lee! I am happy to even share a toothbrush with a mate, but when it comes to astro gear, it is a completely different story...

However, your Avalon is an awesome mount too and it is painted in a faster colour!

[gregbradley]

Thank you Greg. I must admit that it was your feedback, and from several other AP users, that influenced me to go for this mount.

I will have a look at the software you have mentioned, thank you!

I also got the APCC Pro and it has the ability to set limits that are very flexible and can be fine-tuned to one's particular set-up. Will get to that one day [/QUOTE]


Ah yes I just read about the new GTO4 controller and it has compatibility with the APCC Pro and it has slew limits.

I'll have to update my AP1600 with that at some point.

AP products are just the best and I predict you will be happy as a pig in s...
for many years to come with this mount.

Greg.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Those photos of your new mount are astro porn...my NJP is indeed incredible in the raw tracking department, in fact, probably unsurpassed by any other traditional worm and wheel driven mount out there...but your March1 smashes it in the looks department

Mike

[g__day (Matthew)]

Great choice I'd say! Congrats

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

Thank you gents. I have not had a chance to take any images with the new babe yet, only managed two very short sessions before clouds rolled in, but can already confirm that tracking is extremely smooth when comparing to my hypertuned AZEQ6.

Greg, I think you can set customised meridian and horizon limits in APCC with GTO3 as well. Pro version adds the ability of creating a pointing model.

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by Slawomir

Thank you gents. I have not had a chance to take any images with the new babe yet, only managed two very short sessions before clouds rolled in, but can already confirm that tracking is extremely smooth when comparing to my hypertuned AZEQ6.

Greg, I think you can set customised meridian and horizon limits in APCC with GTO3 as well. Pro version adds the ability of creating a pointing model.

Thanks Suavi.

Greg.

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

Hi all,

I have managed another short test run last night. I am still getting used to new software and the mount, but having fun nonetheless.
Having used EQ3, HEQ5 and AZEQ6 for astrophotography (yes- EQ3 as well!) I am really impressed with smooth tracking and repeatable PE. I have not done guiding nor have I tried the PE correction curve that was recorded by AP at the factory; I was only looking at tracking errors and playing with PemPro.

To illustrate the improvement over my hypertuned AZEQ6, I have attached PE curves for AZEQ6 and Mach1. Software was different in both cases and the curves are represented differently, but nonetheless the overall improvement can be noticed easily. Both y-axes are in arc seconds. It was not the total PE error that bothered me with my AZEQ6, which was quite low anyway, but it was rapid moment to moment error that was hard to correct.

[Atmos (Colin)]

I have no idea what my EQ6 94 HEQ5 have as an overall PE but they're both quite jaggered which is what made me want to upgrade. It could be a 50" PE for all I care as long as it is smooth!

Looks very nice Suavi!

[glend (Glen)]

Originally Posted by Atmos

I have no idea what my EQ6 94 HEQ5 have as an overall PE but they're both quite jaggered which is what made me want to upgrade. It could be a 50" PE for all I care as long as it is smooth!

Looks very nice Suavi!

Colin my NEQ6 has improved substantially with the Rowan Belt Drive and new guide parametres advice from the Metaguide author. Its all in the tuning imho.