Hi Chris,
Takahashi mounts are very nice and I very much like the EM200 Temma 2. Moving up to a Tak mount seems the logical step up when you are looking for better tracking, low PE etc.
One thing that bothers me however is the apparent lack of information on the GOTO functionality, which never seems to be explained in any of their advertising material.
The EM200 comes with a Pegasus-21 software disc and an RS-232 cable, but nowhere can I find any information about what this software looks like or what it offers in functionality.
Even with the basic GOTO mounts like Celestron, SkyWatcher and Losmandy, there is a multi-button handset that facilitates alignment, tracking, and a list of thousands of easily accessible sky objects in NGC, Messier and IC lists and user programmable memories to store favourite objects. On my SkyWatcher HEQ5 Pro SynScan handset there is a "sky tour" showing popular objects and an "identify" function which can be used to point to and identify objects that you are not sure of. These types of GOTO handsets are very useful if you have your mount set up out in the bush at a dark sky location, where setting up a laptop can sometimes be a problem.
It seems that there is no such handset available for Tak mounts, so I assume that it all needs to be done on a laptop?
Takahashi have hand controllers (available for extra $$) that only offer the most basic functionality for slewing the mount, etc. but nowhere have I seen any details of the Pegasus-21 software or what features are offered.
It bothers me that after the relatively major expense of buying any Tak product, there are many "add-on" accessories that also must be purchased at considerable extra cost before you can actually do anything with the gear. OK, granted they supply you with an RS-232 cable...20 bucks worth maybe?
Am I missing something here ??
John