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Old 24-08-2009, 09:56 AM
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g__day (Matthew)
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Sydney
Posts: 2,902
I think Ron loves his super mounts. Alot of folk seem to use the EQ6 or G11 with great success here so my thoughts would be you have to know your boundaries. If you think you will get into long duration, long focal length astrophotography - the G11 will have longer legs and better precision to make it a reality.

After 2.5 years of tuning, set up and gaining experience - I can now do hour long shots at 2.3 metre focal length and get round stars (guided tracking seems around +/- 1-2 arc seconds star movement per any 30 seconds - which could be atomspheric, differential flex, mirror shift, polar misalignment, PE etc).

The key point I make is its the long focal length, shifting mirrors, heavy gear (3 OTAs plus focusers, camera, guiders, heavy Losmandy bars etc) that mean the mount has to be absolutely up to it else you are in for alot of pain (and I' argue my Atlux has slightly higher spec's than a G11).

It takes time to master difficult guiding - you absolutely have to nail and try your hardest to eliminate all sources of error (loose or unbalanced gear that shifts only in the microns, CCDs that aren't sensitive enough to guide off, excessive backlash in your DEC). The better quality and capability mount you start with - the fewer sources of error you have to fix.

Serious amateur astrophotographers have managed great results working with the G11 + Gemini combination - there must be a reason why!

Matt
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