Well I guess I'm the guinea pig. Ordered one last week from Astronomy Telescopes in Adelaide. Good service so far. Price was good and freight to Bris only $85. As I'm still getting started on my obs at my new home on the (dark) Darling Downs east of Warwick, will be a few months before I get to try it. Load will be a 10" GSO CF truss f4 Newt with onag and QHY9M + FW. My guess is about 20Kg. Mount does 27Kg, that's why I decided the extra $2K for an EQ8 wasn't justified. BTW, it does ASCOM and has USB and GPS on the mount. My impression is that a few souls are damning it without reading all the details. We'll see....
PS, my thanks to pmrid for pointing out this thread.
Well I guess I'm the guinea pig. Ordered one last week from Astronomy Telescopes in Adelaide. Good service so far. Price was good and freight to Bris only $85. As I'm still getting started on my obs at my new home on the (dark) Darling Downs east of Warwick, will be a few months before I get to try it. Load will be a 10" GSO CF truss f4 Newt with onag and QHY9M + FW. My guess is about 20Kg. Mount does 27Kg, that's why I decided the extra $2K for an EQ8 wasn't justified. BTW, it does ASCOM and has USB and GPS on the mount. My impression is that a few souls are damning it without reading all the details. We'll see....
PS, my thanks to pmrid for pointing out this thread.
I can hardley wait..you to I guess.
The principle seems to me to offer the prospect of a better mount and I cant wait to hear what your experience turns out to be...that is if you care to let us know once you are set up.
That is about my impression too. Will be happy to post a review once I've fired it up. Only problem I have is my horrendous astrophotography skills....You've obviously seen the Youtube videos on the mount, they seem to be quite positive,and were pretty influential in my decision to buy.
Just as a BTW, I also treated myself to a Pegasus Astro DMFC stepper focusser, worth a look. Not that cheap, but works with everything from a GSO upwards.
Thanks for that Alex, good comments there for when I get around to checking the Newt. I've got a well collimated (on V-block) Laser, 2" Barlow, Cheshire and access to a catseye set if all else fails. f4 newts seem to offer lots of variables to misadjust! Luckily it will permanently sit on an 8"diam steel pier, so at least a tripod and nightly setup factor won't contribute, (just the new Ioptron mount....
It is a pity the shop in South Australia does not have the mount shown.
I may ring them and have a chat as the more I look at the mount the more I like it.
How I live for the day to put an observatory on one of my places.
I go thru so many ideas as to what to put where to put it.
At least I have somewhere to put it.
And I really would like one big enough to have a few mounts.
A set up for planetary, Deep sky deep deep sky wide and a solar unit...
All a little ambitious for someone who cant even use the processing software...but you need to have things to look forward to rather than designing your coffin.
I'm curious about the CEM120 range but I wish there was more data out there. Here's some images taken with the CEM120EC: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/6...5#entry8427356 (Stellarvue SVA130T. ZWO ASI 1600MM-C, Astrodon 5nmHa assuming the first post is still valid). That guy was doing unguided images up to 1800 sec.
I'm curious about the CEM120 range but I wish there was more data out there. Here's some images taken with the CEM120EC: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/6...5#entry8427356 (Stellarvue SVA130T. ZWO ASI 1600MM-C, Astrodon 5nmHa assuming the first post is still valid). That guy was doing unguided images up to 1800 sec.
Thank you Chris.
If it were my site I would certainly feature it.
It is different and so if you visit the site and see something different...well I come from a marketing background so maybe I see things differently.
Alex, you mention marketing....
Of the three dealers shown on the Ioptron website, one didn't even have Ioptron on its website, and the other was only contactable via online and didn't have any location or prices. That's why I finished up with the Adelaide one, who at least had the info I wanted.
BTW, my obs will be 2.7m x 4.2m used galv iron walls, RO on an old caravan site the previous owner used while building his house. Basically a slightly larger repeat of my ex-Brisbane one. Two piers, the second with AzEq6 for my C8 Hyperstar and CF RC8, as well as a spare slab outside where the wind turbine used to be. Yep, I'm a gadget collector.
I'm completely off-grid both power (48KWh battery bank) because the power company want $27K to connect from the road 200m away, water (47,000 litres), a 2 BR 2B 100sqm house and built it myself with local help where needed. Fled here from the bright lights and noise of Brisbane. (Just sayin' .....).
Turn 75 this year, born in Tenterfield, raised in Drake, know Tabulam well. So go for it Alex.
Here it is only 12 volt so I am somewhat envious of a 48 vlt system. I have looked into upgrading to 48 vlts but you may as well put aside $30k or maybe $500k to get on the grid.
I put in four new 300 watt panels recently but there is only a 1100 amp battery bank... I put put 500 amp hours in a shed that was going to be my observatory and home sort of thing...and should get ready for outlaying for a new battery bank..next time up it to 2000 amp hours.
But its all pie in the sky until I get out of Sydney...My Dad is down there and I cant abandon him so terrible to say I have to wait until he moves on which the way he if going wont be for another decade...he is a champion...and I dont mind ..in fact he is a good mate... his short term memory is off but so is mind to a degree but otherwise really on the ball.
And a complication yesterday the property that I really want to buy has come up..100 acres river front.. so I hope I can at least get rid of one.
But it would be perfect, darker than either of the others and has grid power and a really nice shed that would convert to an observatory easily.
Anyways nice to hear about your plans and as I said really look forward to hearing about the mount when in use...I really think it will be a ripper.
Tenterfield and Drake... some of my best stories are of events in each of those towns.
As to marketing I think so many have no idea.
If I had conduct of selling that mount it would be on my site, I would be at every star party with one maybe more and well I would be posting images here for a start showing results.
I wish you well with your move everything you have described seems ideal.
Talking about "big disks"
The Canopus 320 was mounted on a SOLID 25mm thick x 520mm diameter fork disk, 3" HD steam pipe arms, 6" rear bearing...worked well.
Would easily support 100Kg
Alex, you mention marketing....
Of the three dealers shown on the Ioptron website, one didn't even have Ioptron on its website, and the other was only contactable via online and didn't have any location or prices. That's why I finished up with the Adelaide one, who at least had the info I wanted.
I wanted to get some details as well and essentially went through the same process.
We all need to keep in mind that this is such a niche market that demand for individual items is going to be low, especially as the price of the item increases. It's not ideal from the point of view of consumer comparisons and competition. It's also not ideal for the business either for income generation either.
I built a mount once and the RA had a meter radius disk.
It was early days for me and although to work for visual I was not precise enought for it to be used for astro photos..it was esentially a fork mount with the disk attached to the fork where the scope pivoted. ..it housed a 10 inch that I built using two old chip heaters for parts of the ota and caravan annex poles to join them.
Alex
