GSO SkyView II?

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi all.

From the Andrews website:

GSO SkyView II Heavy duty, with integrated dual axis drives, hand controller and strong oval-shaped adjustable aluminium tripod legs

Listed at $699.

Seems pretty cheap. Anyone have any specs on them? What weight they can hold? How accurate they are?

Would it hold a 10" OTA?

Thanks

[Gargoyle_Steve (Steve)]

I saw this too Mike, and I had exactly the same thoughts - I might call Andrew's this week and see what I can find out.

[ving (David)]

i'd say about eq5... price plus duel axis drives and controller... makes sense.

[Karls48 (Karl)]

Hi
I got GSO Sky View I with 150mm Newtonian QTA. It got external single axis drive and it tracks well,
I got it for about 2 years. Out of the box the mount was quite stiff, but after re- greasing it work quite good.
What I don’t like about it is:
It is bit heavy
The slow notion controls have big plastic knobs with stiff springy shafts. When you let the knob go and you are not careful not to bend the shaft, it will spring back and forth making the OTA to vibrate.
Tube rings don’t have piggyback attachments
Polar adjustment has 2 adjusting bolts, where you must loosen west bolt and then tighten east bolt to move to the west.
I think that Sky View II is a beef up version of Sky View I with internal drivers
Karl