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  #1  
Old 17-02-2015, 11:35 AM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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SCT remount considerations. NEQ6 or AZEQ6?

I have been considering remounting my CPC925 Celestron for quite some time as the CPC mount is beginning to bug me with it's inherent limitations (Chiefly the inability to manually point)

The realistic options I can see are

1. Grit my teeth and ignore the issue.
2. Get a wedge for the AltAz mount, allowing me to polar align it and cheat the electronic alignment so I have tracking but no goto unless I switch off and star align properly.
3. Remount on an AZEQ6 and have the best of all worlds, tracking, AltAz convenience and the ability to manually after aligning the goto without undoing the alignment. Added to that is the ability to mount two scopes at once for simultaneous widefield use as well as higher mag with the SCT that I have now.
4. Put it on an NEQ6 or similar.

I have not really entertained the "Sell the lot and start again" approach as looking at the sort of prices what I have seems to command secondhand, there is little in it between selling up and starting again versus remounting, and I am happy with the optical performance of my gear.

When mounted on a GEM, how do people find eyepiece positioning of an SCT in various areas of the sky? I know it is not likely to end up as inconvenient as a newt can, but how do they actually fare? I know on an NEQ6 I can not manually repoint without losing the goto functionality, but the price difference is significant.

Obviously cheaper again would be just getting a wedge, but I get my nose out of joint at the thought of the price of a new once from a Celestron dealer in Aus, they are around double the US cost but freight cost would nearly stack up importing one to the same price.

For visual use, would the forthcoming AZEQ5 support my C925 OTA well? I am trying pretty hard to stay away from the AP slope, seeing that way is well lubricated with money.

If it were your money, which way would you jump? All of the options apart from "suck it up" gain me the ability to manually point without loosing tracking in the mount, but only the AZEQ6 (Or other similar mount like the AZEQ5 or other if there is one) allow manual pointing without loosing star alignment.
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Old 17-02-2015, 12:04 PM
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rogerco (Roger)
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A new wedge is at least a quarter the cost of a EQ6pro. I did go the pro way because my main problem was lifting the C8 onto the wedge with one hand (I'm handicapped). You should be able to pick up a wedge for just over a hundred where as a second hand EQ6pro will set you back $900. If I had two hands I would give the wedge a try first.
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Old 17-02-2015, 12:18 PM
casstony
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If you're only visual and don't mind the weight of the CPC then I'd pick option number 1. Once set up the goto fork mounts are great for visual use. Then again 'problems' like this are an opportunity to simply add another telescope to the collection
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  #4  
Old 17-02-2015, 12:23 PM
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Merlin66 (Ken)
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Paul,
For other reasons (fitting the spectroscope in the forks) I moved the 10" Lx onto the NEQ6pro. (I did think about doing the same with the 12" lx but at >17Kg bare, it was IMO tooooo much for the mount!)
The C9.25 is a great instrument.
Sits nicely on the HEQ5 and even better on the NEQ6.
Your issue seems to be using the GOTO as well as slipped clutch manual movement??

I can only say if you go down the EQMod route you can effectively do both! If you know where you are looking (manual select..) then just use say CdC to sync on the object...you can then GOTO any other object...
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  #5  
Old 17-02-2015, 12:25 PM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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The "Problem" I keep coming up against is deciding to change target (Which will often be in a completely different part of the sky) and really, really wishing I could just release the clutches and point it myself, but not loose the tracking. Goto is nice to have though and at times is a lifesaver (Try changing targets when your finder has dewed up heavily! I could get a heater for it I suppose) but the slew time is becoming more and more irritating to me.

Regards a wedge, the Celestron HD is around $800 new in Aus, I have tried three times to buy a secondhand one but in all three cases the seller has decided to keep it and pulled out. I have pretty much given up on the secondhand idea.

The other wedge issue is the bearings in the mount. I would need to upgrade them I think. The CPC925 has mostly nylon balls in the azimuth track and they deform slightly under the weight of the mount and scope. You can hear that they are not round if you spin the mount around on the AZ axis. I run it wound a couple of circles to warm them up and round them up again, but with the weight concentrated on the balls at the bottom of the track on a wedge, it can only get worse. I have seen them replaced with hard chromed ones to fix that and I think I would end up doing that in short order on a wedge.
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Old 17-02-2015, 12:29 PM
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Merlin66 (Ken)
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http://www.green-witch.com/skywatche...pod-3074-p.asp

Is this what you were thinking of?
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  #7  
Old 17-02-2015, 12:31 PM
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Merlin66 (Ken)
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In the NEQ6 you can maintain tracking while doing manual slewing.....
Tracking is easy....re-setting for GOTO a little more difficult.
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Old 17-02-2015, 12:54 PM
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Amaranthus (Barry)
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The AZ-EQ6 has belt drive, which is nice, and the dual encoders allow for the type of manual slewing that you mention. The conversion to Alt-Az mode is relatively straightforward, and it doesn't suffer from the zenith pointing problems of fork mounts. However, you do muck up your elevation setting if you do that
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Old 17-02-2015, 12:55 PM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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Sorry Ken, not ignoring you, your first post must have been while I was typing last time.

Yes, that AZEQ5 was one of the options I had been thinking about, only problem is that they do not seem to be THAT much cheaper than the AZEQ6. Though they do seem to have an interesting take on the alt adjustment with what looks like a worm gear adjustment on the altitude instead of the problematic NEQ6 alt bolts, or even the better designed single bolt setup on the AZEQ6.

Maintaining tracking would be the main thing, maintaining goto is a "Nice to have", if you really want goto back after releasing clutches you could always switch off, switch on and redo the star alignment. Just the AZEQ seems to have the best of both worlds (Three worlds actually, manual pointing, alignment maintained after manual pointing plus the convenience of AltAz in the eyepiece staying easy to get to no matter where you are pointed.
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  #10  
Old 17-02-2015, 12:59 PM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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The AZEQ5 must really be fresh off the blocks, I can not even download a manual for it.

Barry, I would see myself mainly using AltAz mode so messing up a PA would not really be much of an issue.
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  #11  
Old 17-02-2015, 01:34 PM
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Camelopardalis (Dunk)
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I had the NEQ6 before the AZ version came out and wish I was in a position to upgrade. The AZ is a little lighter (1kg apparently). For visual the AZ would win on eyepiece placement but I mitigate that by using a Baader Clicklock visual back which works really well in allowing the diagonal to be rotated with minimal effort and disturbance to the mount. The altitude bolts, and to some extent the azimuth bolts, are a headache when polar aligning on the NEQ6. The slew speed doesn't bother me with the 6.

If you're only visual then you'd probably be OK with the AZEQ5, but thenAZEQ6 just gives you more headroom.
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  #12  
Old 20-02-2015, 07:11 AM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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I keep on looking at the EQ6 mount, but the set up time of the AZEQ in Altaz mode is appealing as well as the obvious eyepiece placement benefit.

Just that to the AZEQ is a substantial jump in money for what amounts to convenience. If an EQ6 was properly polar and star aligned there would be nothing stopping me releasing clutches to point manually, if I want goto back I can always redo the star alignment or even goto slew it to an obvious target, release the clutches and manually realign to that target so the OTA is again pointed where the electronics think it is.

It is just the setup time to do a good enough polar align for visual use plus not being sure if I would end up hating it for odd eyepiece locations.
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Old 20-02-2015, 09:53 AM
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Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)
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AZ/EQ6. Because its better to have it and not need it than the other way around.
The native solidity of the EQ6 is well known and will easily take your 9.25 (it easily handles my f15 Mak which is longer and heavier). I've only seen the AZ/EQ6 once. It was happily carrying a Meade 10" in EQ mode.
Also; once you're done with all that touring and tracking, you can use it to just plain mess-around the sky.
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Old 20-02-2015, 10:23 AM
SteveInNZ
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I use my CGEM as a push-to most of the time and I would expect that you could do the same with your existing setup if you put it on a wedge. I'm just not sure how you tell the mount that it's on a wedge so it only moves the RA axis.

My process goes like this. Put the OTA so that it's pointing at the pole as far as the mount is concerned. ie. Dec= 90 on mount and RA at wherever is home on a fork mount. Turn it on, set the time and location and do a "QuickAlign". That tells it that it's pointing at the pole and it builds its reference model from that. Tell it to slew to something easily identified like the Jewel Box cluster or a planet. Move the mount (wedge in your case) in Alt-Az to center the object. You're now polar aligned (to the accuracy of your markings (initial setup) which is perfectly adequate for visual use). Undo the clutches and swing your scope around to your hearts content. If you want to use the goto for something, push it back to the object (which it thinks it's been tracking), lock the clutches and tell it to slew. If you're having trouble pushing it close enough or you've used the hand control cursors to find an object, do a sync on your reference object and you're back in business.
Push-to is a much nicer way to observe IMHO. Finding the object is part of the fun.

Steve.
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Old 20-02-2015, 10:26 AM
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Camelopardalis (Dunk)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveInNZ View Post
I use my CGEM as a push-to most of the time and I would expect that you could do the same with your existing setup if you put it on a wedge. I'm just not sure how you tell the mount that it's on a wedge so it only moves the RA axis.
In the scope setup, you just change the setting from Alt-Az to EQ South. The CPC and Nexstar share the same hand controller firmware.
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  #16  
Old 20-02-2015, 10:44 AM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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Yes, wedge mounting it would be the easiest and cheapest option. Just I get well offended at paying around $800 for $75 worth of alloy extrusions bolted together and some bits and bobs.

On a wedge you just put it in EQ south mode and then do a 1 star alignment without bothering to actually align it to the specified star. As soon as you hit "Align" it assumes you actually did it and starts running the RA (AZ in AltAz mode) drive. but I have not really found much by way of reviews of the wedge and I reckon push to on the forks with clutches undone would be fairly clumsy.
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Old 20-02-2015, 11:48 AM
SteveInNZ
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I assumed that it would swap between Alt-Az and Eq easily, but didn't know for sure so I didn't want to assume.
I used my 8" SCT as push-to. You don't have a choice with an LX5. It's hard to get it to balance in every position but I think I prefer pushing it in the forks and wedge than the Eq, mostly because all of the movements are within an arms reach. You don't have go all contortionist to operate the clutches. You do have to watch that the eyepiece/barlow/diagonal will go through the forks but if you're pushing you know before it goes clunk.
I wish I'd kept my forks and wedge now.

I agree about the cost of the wedge. There are people imaging with homemade wooden wedges. Food for thought.

Steve.
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  #18  
Old 20-02-2015, 12:03 PM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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The other benefit of a wedge (Though it looses a benefit of the AZEQ when out away from home) is that given I plan on putting in a pier, I could permanently mount the wedge and align it on the pier and when away from home just live with the foibles of the original mount.
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Old 21-02-2015, 01:14 PM
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Paul, notwithstanding the AZEQ5 isn't even out yet, I wonder if a Celestron 9.25 SCT might be pushing the limits in that mount. As some said, the AZEQ6 is that much more beefy, and I think the AZEQ6 latitude adjusting system looks so much better than your standard EQ6.

And then there's the Losmandy AZ8 which will be out soon, looks like classic Losmandy precision, although there's no EQ conversion ability. Fox

Last edited by Fox; 23-02-2015 at 11:01 PM.
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  #20  
Old 21-02-2015, 02:22 PM
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jenchris (Jennifer)
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Funds permitting, I would go for the alt/az eq6.
You wont ever have to replace it.
It does all you ask and is quiet and rugged.
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