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After a month of extra research I'm back for the opinions of you guys. Some of you maybe know it already but I'll say it again for the others. I'm searching for a mount for beginning astrophotography and my budget is around 2000 euro's now. If I save enough I could get to 3.000€ but then I would need to cut down the amount of money that I spent on my girlfriend (so not an option ). I have a couple of mounts that seem ok by me but because you guys have much more experience then me I ask you to "judge" them. I'm planning on using my 4.5 newton (though I'm also looking at a couple of refractors). I'm interested in deepsky imaging.
First one: Vixen GP-DX
I've seen a couple of pictures taken with this mount and they seem pretty nice. The PE is +-15". With the Skysensor it's possible to bring it down to +-10" or so. I've read somewhere that it could carry 11kg, enough for a 4.5" newt (or something bigger?). If I buy this mount I would pay 1175 euros and then I get a tripod, dual axis motors, polar scope and a control box. At the end I would have 800 euro to spend on other things.
Second one: Losmandy G8
Losmandy is one of those names, good products for a fair price (in my eyes). It can carry around 13kg and the PE is around +-10". It would cost 1849 euros without GEMINI (with would cost 3490€). So it would be just the mount for that price. The extras are a tripod, drives and a 7kg counterweight.
Third one: Vixen Sphinx
Would cost 2000 euro, so it would not leave any room for extra's. PE is around +-10" (seen couple with +-15" ) and weightcapacity is 11kg. I haven't seen a lot of pictures with this mount so perhaps you guys could tell me.
Fourth one: Gemini G15
Just 1600 for the mount alone. It can carry an 8" newt so I think the loadcapacity is 11 or 13kg, same as the previous mounts. PE is around +-15" or better without PEC. If I would save up to 2900 I could add a Gemini Pulsar GoTo and a 12 x 30 polarfinder. The version with FS2 GoTo costs around 2700. I can't find anything on this mount, not even a simple picture taken with it. It seems that everybody owns a G41 instead of a G15. So again, I ask you guys to give your opinion on this mount.
For the moment I'm leaning towards the GP-DX because of it's low price but the G15 looks nice to.
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