After travelling to the Aoraki / Mount Cook Dark Sky Park on a recent holiday and viewing the Jewel Box and the Galilean moons of Jupiter through 11" and 14" SCT's I am thoroughly hooked! So I am looking to purchase my first OTA and mount, both used if possible.
I am only looking to do visual astronomy at this stage.
I have seen Celestron 11" and 9.25" SCT's that I am considering. These weigh 12.4 kg and 9.07 kg respectively.
So my question is would either of these mounts be suitable for the above scopes or am I pushing it ? Any other mount suggestions would be welcome:
1. Celestron AVX Equatorial (Payload of 13.6 Kg).
2. Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro (Payload of 13.5 Kg).
Those weights are for the OTA only so you need to add anything you are connecting to it - finderscope, diagonals, eyepieces, etc. And you need to consider if you might move into imaging later too. Personally I would go for at least Skywatcher EQ6R, Celestron CGEM or iOptron CEM40 which all have ~18kg payload capacity - a must if you go for the C11.
I was using a NEQ6pro mount with my C11 for spectroscopy for many years.
Even with five (!!!!!) counterweights it performed very well.
I would recommend it.
Ken
Like the guys above, I’ve used my C11 on a NEQ6 for years… I’d recommend looking out for a mount that is happy with 20kg payload.
Just being frank with you though…there are cheaper ways of achieving a large reflector for visual only. They’re not necessarily easier to handle, but there are other options.
Suitable Mount for a Celestron C11 or C9.25
