Skywatcher CQ 350 why not available in Australasia

[Startrek (Martin)]

Skywatcher brought out a 35kg class EQ mount back in early 2019 for the European market which wasn’t available in the US or Australasia ( don’t know why )

I watched a recent webcast from Skywatcher USA on the EQ8-R mount and on the chat line someone mentioned the CQ 350 mount and when it might be available. Skywatcher USA mentioned there’s something happening with this mount but didn’t let on too much about availability

I think the Skywatcher range has a huge gap between the 20kg class mounts and their EQ8-R at 50kg. A 35kg class mount would definitely fill that gap

A 35kg class mount which is EQMOD compatible is exactly what I’m looking for as a future upgrade.I’ve been eyeing off the EQ8-R mount but it’s way over spec’d payload wise for my requirements and at $8k is a little over budget too.

Any thoughts, comments or inside information on the CQ 350 mount

https://www.skywatcher.it/montatura-cq350-pro/

[LewisM]

Is this Chinese copying Chinese (SW copying iOptron), or is Skywatcher now rebranding iOptron stuff with SLIGHT revision for the Euro market?

Seems very similar to the iOptron CEM70 (which is 32kg rated): https://www.testar.com.au/products/i...ipolar-iguider

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Looks to me more like they are using the same design concept than that they are a rebranded iOptron. There are parts of the Skywatcher design that look better to me (The way the Alt axis is held and adjusted looks better than my CEM70G) but you would wonder why they have set it up with the USB input, power and hand controller on a moving part (The RA axis) instead of on the fixed body of the mount. You would think if they were going to do it like they have they should have put all the ports in one place and provide at least an attachment point to cable tie all the dangling stuff to the RA head so nothing unplugs in the night.

The CEM70 has some foibles but cable management, including external connections, is one thing that iOptron have got right. The only thing that would have been handy would be a USB3 passthrough port from bottom to top for cams like my ASI2600 that are often grumpy when on hubs, as well as the hub connections on the back of the puck. That would have eliminated the need to pass a cable down through the middle (Which is admittedly easy to do)