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Hi Kieken
It seems there is a direct relationship between the cost of a mount and three important factors for reliable, fuss-free, enjoyable DSO imaging:
• Accurate, easy, repeatable set up and polar alignment
• Smooth tracking and guiding
• Minimal amount of time tweaking, fiddling, cursing the mount
I was fortunate to start life with a Vixen GP mount which was a pleasure to use visually, excellent to use for manually guided 35mm film astrophotography and performed very well with auto-guided ccd imaging.
This well engineered and relatively expensive mount just kept meeting all the challenges I threw at it as I progressed from visual observing, through 35mm film photography to ccd imaging; the latter really tests a mount’s capabilities to its limit.
I have seen other users with cheaper Chinese clones which “look” like the Vixen GP or GPDX but when they have tried 35mm photography or ccd imaging, their mounts were simply not as capable. No doubt a lot of tweaking may help improve matters, but if you goal is reliable, pleasant and fuss-free astro-photography, then I would guess that the mount you mention is probably not adequate and it is likely to cause you a lot of frustration and disappointment.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!
Cheers
Dennis
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