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Originally Posted by acropolite
I'm also interested in the CG5 mount, simply as a platform for the ED80 for astrophotography. Does anyone have any feedback on how the CG5 performs, particularly accuracy and guiding capability.
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I'm pretty happy with mine once you learn its quirks. If you do a six star set-up, using stars widely spaced on both sides of the meridan, and centre them well always slewing Up and right to get on target, at high magnification, then the pointing accuracy pleases me. Whenever I choose an object its slews almost exactly to it. The target may be 20% away from the centre of the eyepiece at worst.
Once you centre the object it tends to stay centred for a few hours. E.g. pick Jupiter, centre it at 4pm, by 9pm its at most only 20% out of centre of the eye piece. This without doing a drift alignment!
With any set-up the more you're off polar alignment the more the Goto computer has to compensate to track objects. As you improve polar alignment I have seen the tracking vastly improves. I expect with a proper drift alignment tracking would be excellent, as only the RA must run to track objects.
As to its weight handling capabilities I expect from all my reading its exactly up to spec. Anything up to a C9.25 with imaging accessories would be fine. An ED80 would be a walk in the park.
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Dave,
I think the voting so far may not reflect your weighted selection criteria, as you only clarified your requirements and prefered trade-offs after alot of the votes where in. If most people have said an EQ6 - which for their cost and primary design criteria (affordable stability under alot of carrying capacity) are excellent. But are these factors your primary needs - not as you've described them. You seem to want an all-rounder with the choices you are now favouring.
With your situation I'd choose otherwise. If I just wanted the scopes you suggested I'd go the CG5 for value - totally suited to your needs, or if I later got really serious on astrophotography in your specified weight range then the Vixen is unbeatable.
All mounts listed will perform, but they are each designed with clearly distinguishable characteristics. When you are crystal clear on where your priorities lie the answer will drop out, and the better you explain you desires and hopes (they're still a bit unclear to me) the more the knowlegable folk here will be able to help you.