EQ8 or something else )I'd love to hear an EQ8 owners thoughts?!?)

[Imme]

Hey guys,

I'm tossing up changing my astro rig a bit and would love peoples thoughts.

Currently I have a purpose built observatory with -


A WO 132mm (F7) triplet on a guided EQ6 running an ASI1600 OSC. Guiding is just in the acceptable range on this one, I guess you could say at a 14kg-15kg payload I'm more or less pushing the envelope.
A WO 80mm (F6'ish) doublet on an EQ5 running a QHY8 Pro. I don't use this one too often due to having to swap connections on the computer which is a pain.....and quality of the other scope means I prefer to use that.

I would love to get both scopes running on the same mount but there is no way I could add an additional 5kg-6kg (the 80mm setup) to the already loaded EQ6 and expect anything near reasonable guiding.

Thrown in the mix is the fact I've recently pulled the trigger on a LRGB/Narrowband setup so with the NB I'll be needing to do some longer exposures.....meaning greater accuracy will be needed for guiding if I want to produce the quality of picture I am hoping for.

My thought - sell off both the EQ6 and EQ5 and then grab myself an EQ8 head on which I can then mount both scopes. The 132mm will run the mono camera and the 80mm can run the OSC. I can then chose to image with either or both depending on what I'm looking to do.

From what I read EQ8's have a very low PE and guiding figures come in close to mounts worth twice the money (0.2-0.3 is a quoted figure I see quite often). I'd expect guiding would also be on the better side of quoted figures due to the fact I'd be running the thing with only about half it's rated imaging capacity.

So....EQ8 owners, what are your thoughts on the mount?

Or....anyone else, I'd love to hear what you'd do in my situation.

[jwoody]

Hello Jon

I have had my EQ8 for about a year now and have no regrets whatsoever.
Guides really well and no problems with backlash.
I have a steel tube RC10 with a 65 quad refractor piggybacking on top of it, camera, filter wheel etc etc.
I was imaging Carina the other week with my RC10 (2014mm focal length) and 20 minute subs weren't a problem. Further away from the celestial pole I still get very good results.

You just can't beat it for the money IMHO.
Cheers
Jeremy

[Imme]

Thanks for the opinion Jeremy......out of interest what weight does all that add up to approx?

[brisen]

Hi Jon

I have an EQ8 which I am now running a 12" RC truss scope on which comes in at about 30 kgs with the Night Crawler and CCD attached to it. I have had it about 9 months and very happy with the guiding and lack of backlash. I have run it with the Esprit 120 and routinely get guiding RMS of 0.3". 30 minute NB subs with the 120 have been no problem and I could easily push it longer if I wanted to and still have round stars.

It doesn't even realise it has 30 kgs on it, it throws the 12" around like a gorilla throwing a banana around in the air.

At a focal length of over 2.4m I am getting guiding around the 0.4" but will get this down further again once I tweak the polar alignment again as I have a portable setup at the moment.

I have been tweaking collimation on the RC and last night everything fell into place so tonight I am hoping to get some longer exposures with the RC despite the moon being around. 10 minute trial subs last night were not a problem and tonight I am aiming for 30 minutes to see how far I can push it.

Brian

[jwoody]

Not sure Jon. The 2x10kg counter weights are towards the end of the bar if that helps :D
Maybe 20,21 kg's?????

[Imme]

Cheers guys, by the looks of it the mount definitely is a heavy weight and guides pretty well!

[AstroJunk]

I have a 1st generation EQ8 - the first batch ever released into the wild :)

It arrived almost exactly six years ago, has never missed a beat and in my opinion, the best EQ mount in it's payload class regardless of price.

It chucks my 14" SCT with 3" guide scope around as if it were nothing!