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Lol, I must have an understanding treasurer. I was talking to her about it last night, explaining that I was not really sure which way to jump, that the HEQ5 would be plenty for visual, but then the CPC mount is really good for that too, despite the limitations that it imposes in order not to destroy the goto alignment. Then I said that I reckoned that the HEQ5 would be right at the limit for any decent sort of AP and she said that if I bought the 5 I would just end up wanting to upgrade it later so buy the right one first time out!
And on to the real question, AP of any serious variety is a fair way down the road for me but if I spend money on a mount I would like to keep the option open which is why I am looking at a GEM at all and why I am considering a top end (Relatively) item. However visual is and will remain far more common an activity and with the CPC mount I can be observing (Ignoring cool down time) within a couple of minutes of carrying the OTA and fork assembly out to the tripod.
If I install a pier I can hopefully expect a polar alignment to remain good enough between sittings to be straight underway for visual observation with good enough accuracy of polar alignment to be useful, but for a reasonably competent person if I am going to a remote site (I do understand exactly what we are trying to achieve with a polar alignment and don't expect to take too long to come to a reasonable level of competence) how long should it take to align the likes of an EQ5/6 variant and be ready to observe? At home if I do a pier (Or even if not) I can easily do a solar noon measurement to find true south and mark it up somewhere to give an aiming point to get close to the pole, and I can drive a spirit level as well as anyone else, but at a remote site unless I am really early, solar noon will be more of a problem and less accurate devices are likely to take over that measurement.
I am ignoring star alignments in that question, one of my bugbears as mentioned previously is that I am getting tot he stage of wanting to star hop manually and I can not do that with the CPC, as soon as the clutches are released the alignment is gone and object tracking with it. At least when using the HEQ/NEQ as a basic clock drive, I can just declutch, point manually, lock up and then fine tune pointing with the hand controls. If I really want goto I can do a star alignment.
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