I have spent a month or more looking at GEM mounts, on the point of ordering, only to change my mind.
Having poured over reviews, technical specs and horror stories, I understand the importance of a good mount for astrophotography.
Some are just too expensive and some cheaper - claiming all sorts of things - I think you get what you pay for.
I'm down to Losmandy or a comparable Takahashi - not a new one? Technically, these two seem to be the pick of the bunch, in the price bracket. Other brands suffer in the following areas. Low resolution gearing, and low resolution steppers, gear and bearing quality, precision and materials, response time when using autoguiding, software compatibility, the use of software for PEC - that is, the mount needs it, otherwise its useless, and so on.
It seems to me that a mount is a long term investment and should have good re-sale value and be scalable - the capacity to increase scope size rather than upgrade the mount for a bigger scope and spend that money toward an imaging camera/accessories. In the meantime enjoy the performance of a quality mount. Digital is fine - goto is nice.
Why is a Tak better than a G-11. Closer inspection of the G-11 specs shows finer gearing in RA, 360 teeth to 144 on the Tak (in comparable price range), and finer resolution steppers.
My only problem with the G-11 is the after sale modification of the precision helical (?), and the stories of having to mod new mounts, removing burrs due to poor machining etc, it seems the Tak is better engineered, but is its performance any better, once you've cleaned up the G-11 - do the later models need that much work, and what mods are necessary.
Still deciding.
