[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Has anyone done this successfully?

The G-11's advertised capacity is 27kg.

If I were to de-fork my 12" LX200GPS (16.6kg~ish), add a dovetail (2.5kg), FS60-C guidescope (2kg), guide rings (1kg), Electronic MicroFocuser (1kg) and a DSLR (1.0kg) (Total approx. weight: 24.1kg) and then put it on a G-11 would it cope well? Given that the G-11 was originally developed for the Celestron C-11 it can't be far off.

After unsuccessfully trying to sell, so far, the LX200 to buy a Tak 130 I'll probably end up just keeping the LX. It's a great scope, but with the forks is way too heavy for my back - which suffers from a burst L5 disk. The reason I wanted to go with the Tak was it gives a great photographic performance without the weight. However, if I were to de-fork the OTA, its reduced weight is more in line with my current strength. With a f/6.3 focal reducer it'll be great for photography.

I know people will try to advise me to just buy an OTA from scratch and sell the current one, that's what I've tried to do without success so far. I'm not going to give it away, so I may as well use the thing. I believe that the 12" can be de-forked without having to disassemble the arms, which is what screws up the smaller OTAs after putting them though the process. The forks, GPS, and all the other guff can sit in a cupboard until one day when I mount it permanently in an observatory.

Any advice from anyone at all? I've heard stories about de-forked OTAs are VERY difficult to re-fork, but I'm not sure that I can find enough reliable evidence of this.

Thanks in advance