[UniPol]

Dave,

I was in the same position as you a few years ago. I bought a second hand TOA-130 OTA/EQ6 Pro mount which worked very well. Mind you, the TOA-130 is no lightweight and three standard EQ6 5.2kg c/weights are required to balance the set up adequately. I am mainly a visual observer however some very decent moon, planet and comet images have been taken using a Canon DSLR camera, well, at least my family said they were . Star clusters and the brighter deep sky objects are not difficult however they are not in the same class as Hubble or the more gifted IIS serious astrophographers. It sure beats my old SLR cameras using emulsion film and F15 refractors/F7 Newtonians. 'GoTo' seems to be a must have these days however using setting circles holds fond memories for me in the 1960's - 1990's. Ring up Sydney observatory, get siderial time, calculate the hour angle for the various objects you want to view in the evening using right ascension and declination co-ordinates, seems all too hard now .

Getting back on track, having used an EQ6 with various OTA's and on many occasions, I found it to be relatively quiet, reliable, easy to set up and user friendly, somewhat like Meade's Autostar/Celestron's Nexstar. Owing to my retirement from the workforce a couple of years ago I found that all those years of paying superannuation and mortgage repayments had paid off and I was able to indulge myself by trying out the lastest astronomical equipment on offer. I have only recently replaced the EQ6 with a Takahashi EM-200 Temma 2M mount and tripod to go with the TOA-130 and it certainly exudes quality and so it should at between five and six times the price of an EQ6 ! A figure of $7800 was mentioned earlier for the Tak EM-200 mount, don't forget to ad another $1200 for the dedicated wooden tripod plus another c/weight at around $250 to mount the TOA-130. Unfortunately for us, the Japanese Yen has remained fairly stable against our currency unlike the the US dollar. If we went back to the early 2000's we would be paying twice the price for Losmandy, TeleVue, Astro-Physics et al. I also purchased a Losmandy G11 Gemini mount as well and it is simply great. While the Gemini is not nearly as easy to operate as the EQ6 hand controller you get used to it it and keeps the old brain working in any case. The G11 is superb holding my Celestron EdgeHD14" particularly since I fitted "Scoperollers" to the tripod.

If you will, the Tak EM-200 Temma II compared to the EQ6 is analogous to Ford/Holden vs Mercedes/BMW, both work, but depending on your finances and perception, should satisfy a broad number of amateur astronomers.

Regarding the Paramount MX mount also mentioned earlier for the sum of $8500, I am curious to know what the landed price will be here after adding on freight, GST and duties. Certainly $8500 sounds good but certain resellers here in Australia are reluctant to give us a ball park final figure. This reminds me of car salesmen, one astro dealer here in Australia sells a particular CCD imager for "under $2500", guess what the price is? You guessed it, $2499! This aside, I suppose the PMX is intended for permanent pier mounting but wonder if a dedicated tripod will be available?