New mount arrived....

[garymck]

During a moment of madness induced by my eq6 frustrations (see other threads) and seduced by special prices from Myastroshop, I ordered a Vixen GPD2 mount. After some trials with couriers (sorted out by Steve very promptly) I picked up the mount yesterday. I have to say that the fit, finish and general feel of the mount is waaaaay above the Synta stuff, and I'm hoping it will prove to be a quality buy in performance. I have retrofitted it with a borrowed set of Meade Autostar DS drives and am now hanging out to test the tracking ability and comparing it to the eq6. I will post graphs as soon as I have them....
cheers
Gary

[telecasterguru]

Congratulations Gary and enjoy your new mount.

Frank

[allan gould]

Really hope it works out for you Gary after all your troules.
Allan

[The Mekon]

Gary, I am suprised you have gone from an EQ6 to a Vixen GPD2, as I am considering going the other way.

I have an old SPDX - a structurally similar mounting for my 130mm F8 refractor and though I thought it Ok when new, the mount struggles now, with the motors not driving properly. I only do visual obs so I am not looking at tracking errors, just good performance in all conditions, not just still air. The scope + finder weighs in at 24lb. I have 18lbs of cwt.

I thought as the EQ6 is a bigger mount with ball+roller bearings rather than plastic bushings it would be a lot better than the Vixen DX models.

[DavidTrap]

Congrats Gary,

I can understand your excitement!

DT

[garymck]

Hi,
I have no problem with the EQ6 for visual use, it will laugh at the load you want to place on it. My problems (and others have had the same issues) were/are in tracking performance for longer focal length imaging. I went for the GPD2 to try to obtain smoother tracking. My only other option was to drop out of the hobby and save for a class mount for a couple of years, and I'd go nuts doing that!!!! The scopes I will use are within the weight limit of the mount. My only issue now is to select the drive system I'm going to use. I was intially going to use a Meade Autostar DS conversion, but the motors have proved to have too much in the way of random errors in them, though the mount itself appears to be around 12 arc sec peak to peak (needs to be confirmed with good motors) - the sort of result I was hoping for....

cheers Gary