The_bluester
14-03-2015, 07:59 AM
Having talked about it for a couple of years I finally took the plunge this week and remounted my CPC925 on the Orion version of the AZ-EQ6, last night was my first chance to try the mount outside the confines of the garage.
Forgive me if this is not much of a formal review, it is more some initial thoughts on using the mount.
Firstly on arrival, the mount and tripod arrive well packed and protected as you would expect, well packed in foam for the fragile bits and double boxed. Once out of the box, setup only took about ten minutes.
The supplied tripod is quite sturdy, at least for visual use, anyone with an EQ6 will be familiar with it in operation. Mounting the head is the same as an EQ6, just spread the azimuth adjustment bolts and sit the mount head in the recess and wind in the captive retaining bolt, which also serves as the fixing point for the eyepiece tray/tripod spreader.
Once set up you are faced with the choice of using Alt Az or EQ mode, changing between the two is easy, without an OTA mounted, just loosen the Alt locking nuts, wind the Alt jackscrew up until the thread disengages and gently lift the head to 90 degrees via the counterweight shaft, locking it in position by means of a bolt which is normally stored in a spare hole on the side plate of the mount. When you turn on the mount, the first selection after it initialises is which mode the mount is in, it remembers your selection so if you switch off in Alt Az mode, it is pre selected on next power up needing only an "Enter" button press to confirm. EQ6 users might miss the "Comfort beep" though as it does not beep on initialisation or on completion of slews.
In Alt Az mode the alignment is simple, make sure first that the tripod is reasonably level, mount your OTA and balance it (Easiest to do while in EQ mode and mark positions) and then with the OTA facing north while the face plate faces south, switch the mount on and follow the simple instructions on the handset for a three star alignment. The only difference here between this alignment and my old CPC mount is needing to know more stars by name and manual site and time settings in the handset compared to the GPS ease of the CPC. Anyone with an EQ/Synscan mount will be familiar with the setup.
In Alt Az mode the goto's were pretty good, particularly as I really did not spend much time getting the electronic alignment spot on. Tracking appeared good and objects stayed pretty still in the EP for a decent time.
I played around with Alt Az for a little while and then reconfigured in EQ mode, making a rough polar alignment using the polar scope on Octans. In EQ mode it tracked nicely and was pretty accurate most of the time for Goto slews, but again, I did not spend much time on the electronic alignment, simply making a one star align on Sirius and then getting on with it. It was a little off slewing to Jupiter however my last goto of the night was to 47 Tuc, which was placed near the middle of the FOV at around 100X mag in a Plossl. The moon rose shortly after that so I packed up for the night.
Now on to the real standout for me. I remounted as I wanted the ability to use an EQ mode but Alt Az is often much better visually, but I was becoming more and more frustrated with slewing times and inability to manually point. With the dual encoders on this mount it does exactly as advertised. Loosen the clutches, point it where you want it, tighten the clutches again and it just keeps right on tracking, either in EQ or Alt Az mode. You can prove it quite easily by doing a goto on an object, manually pointing away from it a bit then hit enter again on the hand controller and it promptly slews right on back again.
The only disadvantage I can come up with (Apart from spending $2200) compared to the original CPC mount it that there is greater susceptibility to vibration if the scope is bumped but I think that relates more to my flimsy little narrow dovetail and the fact that the CPC mount appeared to be exceptionally good in that regard, you could really manhandle it without inducing any shakes. The polar scope illumination is a bit overwhelming as seems to normally be the case on the EQ6 and others even at the lowest illumination level, I could still pick out Octans though.
On the other side of the coin, the tracking with clutches released is a godsend as it makes Alt Az use with tracking AND manual pointing for quick target changes possible, and in EQ mode the altitude adjustment is so far ahead of the EQ6 variants that it is just not funny, no more bent and binding Alt bolts!
All in all I am a very happy camper right now.
Forgive me if this is not much of a formal review, it is more some initial thoughts on using the mount.
Firstly on arrival, the mount and tripod arrive well packed and protected as you would expect, well packed in foam for the fragile bits and double boxed. Once out of the box, setup only took about ten minutes.
The supplied tripod is quite sturdy, at least for visual use, anyone with an EQ6 will be familiar with it in operation. Mounting the head is the same as an EQ6, just spread the azimuth adjustment bolts and sit the mount head in the recess and wind in the captive retaining bolt, which also serves as the fixing point for the eyepiece tray/tripod spreader.
Once set up you are faced with the choice of using Alt Az or EQ mode, changing between the two is easy, without an OTA mounted, just loosen the Alt locking nuts, wind the Alt jackscrew up until the thread disengages and gently lift the head to 90 degrees via the counterweight shaft, locking it in position by means of a bolt which is normally stored in a spare hole on the side plate of the mount. When you turn on the mount, the first selection after it initialises is which mode the mount is in, it remembers your selection so if you switch off in Alt Az mode, it is pre selected on next power up needing only an "Enter" button press to confirm. EQ6 users might miss the "Comfort beep" though as it does not beep on initialisation or on completion of slews.
In Alt Az mode the alignment is simple, make sure first that the tripod is reasonably level, mount your OTA and balance it (Easiest to do while in EQ mode and mark positions) and then with the OTA facing north while the face plate faces south, switch the mount on and follow the simple instructions on the handset for a three star alignment. The only difference here between this alignment and my old CPC mount is needing to know more stars by name and manual site and time settings in the handset compared to the GPS ease of the CPC. Anyone with an EQ/Synscan mount will be familiar with the setup.
In Alt Az mode the goto's were pretty good, particularly as I really did not spend much time getting the electronic alignment spot on. Tracking appeared good and objects stayed pretty still in the EP for a decent time.
I played around with Alt Az for a little while and then reconfigured in EQ mode, making a rough polar alignment using the polar scope on Octans. In EQ mode it tracked nicely and was pretty accurate most of the time for Goto slews, but again, I did not spend much time on the electronic alignment, simply making a one star align on Sirius and then getting on with it. It was a little off slewing to Jupiter however my last goto of the night was to 47 Tuc, which was placed near the middle of the FOV at around 100X mag in a Plossl. The moon rose shortly after that so I packed up for the night.
Now on to the real standout for me. I remounted as I wanted the ability to use an EQ mode but Alt Az is often much better visually, but I was becoming more and more frustrated with slewing times and inability to manually point. With the dual encoders on this mount it does exactly as advertised. Loosen the clutches, point it where you want it, tighten the clutches again and it just keeps right on tracking, either in EQ or Alt Az mode. You can prove it quite easily by doing a goto on an object, manually pointing away from it a bit then hit enter again on the hand controller and it promptly slews right on back again.
The only disadvantage I can come up with (Apart from spending $2200) compared to the original CPC mount it that there is greater susceptibility to vibration if the scope is bumped but I think that relates more to my flimsy little narrow dovetail and the fact that the CPC mount appeared to be exceptionally good in that regard, you could really manhandle it without inducing any shakes. The polar scope illumination is a bit overwhelming as seems to normally be the case on the EQ6 and others even at the lowest illumination level, I could still pick out Octans though.
On the other side of the coin, the tracking with clutches released is a godsend as it makes Alt Az use with tracking AND manual pointing for quick target changes possible, and in EQ mode the altitude adjustment is so far ahead of the EQ6 variants that it is just not funny, no more bent and binding Alt bolts!
All in all I am a very happy camper right now.