GM1000HPS - Unboxing

[perfrej]

Good Morning!

You can always trust UPS to deliver when they say they will. 10.30 the door bell rang and in came the two packages. Fairly heavy...

Opening the larger box revealed one smaller box containing the "loose stuff" and a heavily padded compartment for the mount itself. My impression is that this may very well survive even the most ambitious delivery guy's handling.

As can be seen, this mount is not going anywhere. The smaller box contained the two counterweights that was included in my delivery. This is not a full package GM1000HPS with all the bells and whistles, rather a mount, two separately order weights and a pier/tripod adapter. I honestly don't know what's in the "full package" - check out Baader's site in case you have to know.

This is the full content spilled out on the living room floor:

As you can see, the standard 10Micron hood for the mount head is included, and in contrast to my GM2000HPS, the 1000 has the separate control box (which can be had for the 2000 and 4000 as well).

Well, let's see how she looks... First, the GM2000HPS UP, where UP means "Ultra Portable". That term, in its own right, is a bit of an over-statement, but it is easier to lift the GM2000 with the head separated into two pieces. As you can see, the 2000 that I have has the round control box that acts as a pier extender.

So, sisters in arms looks like this. The 1000 is quite a bit smaller than the 2000, about the same size as an NEQ6:

The saddle of the GM1000 looks very much the business and accepts both Losmandy and (heaven forbid) Vixen bars. It uses a reasonably wide pressure part that doesn't damage the bar, which is good.

The base of the GM1000HPS bears little resemblance to that of the GM2000HPS. The 1000 sports a rack and pinion style adjustment that appears very good while the 2000 has more friction control and a threaded push-up thingy. I immediately find that rack and pinion appears to be an excellent idea but that the friction knobs will need to be properly tightened. Not a show stopper in any way. The image below is with the pier adapter plate mounted. Note the nice knobs in aluminium with nylon washers built in! Same as on the GM2000 but smaller.

With the counter-weight bar (30mm solid steel) mounted, the complete mount looks like this. I find it quite attractive

Finally, in today's first look at the new baby, the control box. This comes in a protective case and can be hung on your tripod or mounted on a pier by means of a special holder that you probably can buy from Baader Planetarium.

I have drilled three new holes in the base of my Centaur Tripod and mounted the pier adapter on it. The mount has been run with a Skywatcher 190MN and QSI 683 on it (quite heavy stuff) and runs like silk. Unfortunately the weather report looks very unfavorable and in a week's time I have to go to the US and Canada for ten days. Thus, true first light and evaluation of the mount performance will have to wait a bit. But anyway; stay tuned! This is exciting stuff!

All the best,

Per

[NickK]

Hmm nice review - one thing I didn't pick up on previously at astrofest is that the small clamps have a contact-surface area of about 2 cm unlike it's bigger brother that seems to clamp the entire length.

At astrofest it seemed understated but I look forward to it's first light!

[perfrej]

Actually, the GM2000 saddle that I have clamps with two smaller things, not the entire length... You can see them in the picture of the GM2000 disassembled above. They're about 4mm in diamater.

/per

[perfrej]

Sorry, 6mm in diameter...

[ribuck]

wow the GM1000 looks so small next to the GM2000HPS, Aww how cute it looks.................Sorry definately getting the Mesu, a more manly looking mount.....lol

[perfrej]

Oh, but Rick! How did this come about? Let's compare unguided images after six months!

/p

[ribuck]

It came about after I realised the the mesu is a grand less which could be spent on other astro goodies like a perhaps a edge HD 8"

[jjongmans]

I don't know. It looks nice, but it is small. Not sure if I would dare putting on a 20kg OTA on it... Are you sure it will perform unguided with a 'heavy' (20kg.) OTA and longer focal length (1700+mm)?

[Jessun]

I noticed the 2000 has some alignment marks that the 1000 lacks. Are these of particular use on the 2000?

Have fun putting it to the test on the balcony!

/Jesper

[Velvet]

just a query from a female, can you tell how heavy the mount is compared to the NEQ6?? I am considering this and have no problems hefting an NEQ6 with the tripod legs attached, but am

worried about the weight of this one?

Thanks

Velvet

[Tim]

I thought some of you might be interested in this exposure from tonight. Its misty and patchy and not worth any serious imaging, so I thought I would muck about whilst watching Skyfall on Blu Ray as I have the same mount that Per just obtained.

This is a guided exposure at around 1970mm fl. The exposure is two hours long, 7200 seconds. Single sub without draks bias flats etc, just here to show the stars shape and size after 2 hours. As I had to recollimate my scope tonight and haven't had a chance to do a realignment with the mount, and as this has only a 4 star alignment model, it isn't quite perfect......

Oh my kit weighs over 20KG.

Don't take the Mesu personally Per, some people always gets good advice and does the opposite, patterns start to show

Cheers

Tim

[perfrej]

I guess we'll all have to wait for the Swedish weather to improve before getting any definite answers...

The general performance is specified to be about the same for the two sisters, with tracking for 15 minutes at "less than 1 arcsec RMS" for the GM1000 and "0.6 arcsec RMS for the GM2000". Indications from other testers show that they can perform about the same but differ in the payload.

As for focal lengths, that is always a tricky one. I have done reasonable subs 2350mm but had a bad model. At 1460mm I get haf hour subs without a problem, and that was tested with a good model. Problem is that it is very difficult to get good models at longer focal lengths. The reason is that, contrary to popular belief, random flexure paramters cannot be calculated and thus cannot be compensated for. What happened with a randomly flopping mirror during model building is not the same that happens to it during imaging; something I am sure most people will understand. Still, some suppliers of stuff with modeling capability state that flexure is compensated for. Sorry, but that is impossible.

What can be compensated for is predicitable flexure, things that always happen in the same way regardless of, for example, temperature. What I am trying to say is that longer focal lengths will give more unreliable models as the flexure parameters affecting the scope increase in absolute pointing terms. The solution is actually to zero out the cone error of all the scopes you want to use and make the model with the steadiest one. Whenever you change scope you just align the model on a single star.

The GM1000HPS wieghs 18kg without the counterweight bar mounted. I don't remember the NEQ6's weight.

Payload... Well, I think you should not look at the pure numbers. Flexure is a bad parameter that tends to change with different shapes of OTAs and tube mounting options. A refractor that sits tightly, close to the saddle on a high quality Losmandy bar is going to be a lot better than a tin-tube SCT on a Vixen bar, even though they show the same number when put on your bathroom scale. Likewise, an SCT with good tube and mounting is going to be better than a 2m long refractor with equal stability.

You should remember this from maybe ninth grade T = r X F. A weight of 1kg situated 50cm from the sadde is four times as bad as the same weight situated 10cm from the saddle. So, in general, pay attention to the way your rig is mounted more than to the absolute weight of it. Can anyone guess why I chose to put my new QSI 683 wsg8 on the inside of my 190MN and not on the outside as most people do? It is a very heavy camera and it doesn't matter if the focuser is pointed towards the mount, right...

Time and experience will tell how well this baby performs. For me, the fact that it shares the technology and the build quality of its bigger sister tells me that it will most likely do what it is supposed to do.

Now, our weather has been the worst in ages. In fact, I have not imaged more than two nights since mid December. Lots of time to think about things like this and collect information. I have started a rather technically oriented we site that eventually will fill up with information like this as well as my experiences. I have also put my software efforts up for download from there and will keep it updated. The current documentation project is on mount time keeping and that should show up in a couple of weeks. Also in short while, the model maker software will be available as donor-ware. It s geared towards the 10Micron mounts and fully automates the building of a sky model (pointing and tracking) so that you can spend time inside or run a completely remote observatory.

Tim, I agree. Let's not take it personally If Rick wants to guide for the rest of his life that is fine. The Mesu is a very good mount, especially when used with the Sitech controller. It does, however, lack the absolute encoders so it will not be a top performer unguided. I hate guiding even though I never had any problems with it...

/per

[perfrej]

Jesper, the marks on the 2000 is so that you can manually put the axis in the home position for easier assembly of the UP version. You don't have to line them up but it helsp in the dark or when you're in an awkward position and can't really see what you're doing

[ribuck]

Per / Tim, dont take anything personally, i was just having some light-hearted fun about the size of the mount looking tiny compared to the GM2000. Make no mistake, i think the GM Range of mounts are technically amazing and the only reason I've decided that the mesu will probably be a better option for me is because i want to put a Mak/SCT on it at the same time as my 2 refractors, so i dont have to keep swapping scopes.

if the GM1000 had a slight larger payload support, say 30-35kg then I would definitely have bought the GM1000, as i would have preferred not to guide.

Rich.

[ollypenrice]

Looks great, Per. Ditto Tim's long guided exposure. Tight as a drum. Stunning. Clearly both the Mesu and the 10M are good mounts but from different philosophies. I wonder which would win in the wind? Genuine question. Unguided would be nice but with a very good mount it only involves a couple of clicks. I never adjust the parameters on Yves' mount, I just light up PHD and Press Here Dummy. I don't see this as a big issue.

Having come this far I'd love to see 10M lose the flip, though. They have clearly got to the top level with GEMs. Personally, given the choice of losing guiding or losing the flip I'd lose the flip. It's just 'right' to my mind. It also takes up less space.

Now that the Paramount has had its cage well and truly rattled it's high time that the lower end of the market got the 10 Micron treatment!

Olly

[perfrej]

I agree, Olly. Both are formidable products, each with its unique signature.

Now, I really have no issues with flips. They just work and they affect nothing. I use Pixinsight for registration and you can do almost anything to the images and it will still register them just fine. Guiding... As I said previously I have never had a problem with guiding when using PHD. MaximDL is another story and unfortunately that is what you are forced to use when you go remote. Given a few practice runs though, I am certain that I will iron that out as well.

Currently, the GM1000 is on my Centaur tripod in my study. I drilled and tapered new holes in the tripod base plate in order to accomodate the different hole pattern of the GM1000 (compared to the GM2000). The 190MN is on it as is the QSI 683. The scope turned a little top heavy and thus got a very low position on the dec axis so I added a 5kg weight (NEQ6 leftover) to the primary mirror assembly to get it up a bit. I think I am past the 20kg mark with that as I had to add the other NEQ6 weight to the very end of the bar (M8 hole there ). So, I have 17kgs of counterweights...

Just ran a dry run with my model maker and slewed around at 15°/s for half an hour without issues. The stuff is good to go, I'd say!

/per

[ribuck]

Olly, does the Mesu 200 do flips ?

[ollypenrice]

Olly, does the Mesu 200 do flips ?

Yes, you have to. The Mesu No1 is a flipless mount, though. In fact I don't flip, I just roll on past the meridian and stop when I have to. The way the observatory is built there is rarely even an hour to be gained by flipping. Alternatively I sometimes start weights high on the west to get a long uninterrurpted run. I'm sure that the flip is better accomplished by the 10M than the Mesu, though.

Olly

[famax]

Sorry if i'm wrong , but i read somewhere that the gm1000 was able to go trough the meridian by 30° or 45° without a flip.

I used to make a complete rest of my eq6 inthe begining of imaging to avoid meridian flip.

Ipossible to use that trick with the gm 1000 since it always know where it is pointing.

[jjongmans]

Nice to see that threaded end screwed on the counterweightbar... Same solution I once used with the ASA. When my ASA was delivered I missed the extra weights that I ordered, so I had to come with this (yes, dumbbell weights):

I needed 18.8kg counterweight (3x 5.2 + 1x 2.6) on an extended bar (40mm diameter, which is heavy) to balance my setup... crazy.

[emadmoussa]

Oohh...Shiny!!! I'm very jealous right now Congratulations, buddy!!

[perfrej]

Flip, guide, not flip, not guide... To be or not to be...

With the level of pointing accuracy available in these modern mounts flipping becomes a total non-issue. Now, if you have a telescope that has some flopping or flexure problems, it may be beneficial to stay on the same side of the meridian. The firmware in the 10Micon mounts has two parameters that control the behavior: "slew flip tolerance" and "guide flip tolerance".

The first controls how the mount auto-flips on execution of a normal slew. If this tolerance is set to, say, +15 degrees, this means that a slew executed to a position up to 15 degrees past the meridian will be ececuted without flipping, in other words stay on the same side that it already is pointing. The value can be negative as well.

The second simply controls how far past (or before if negative) the medidian the mount will track.

Both parameters allow values up to 30 degrees, a figure that usually results in some kind mechanical contact. If that happens, the mount will throw a motor error, stop all motored activity and survive the incident without any damage.

/per

[perfrej]

Oohh...Shiny!!! I'm very jealous right now Congratulations, buddy!!

Thanks!

/per

[ribuck]

I do like the way it cuts the motors if it makes contact, a very nice feature indeed. I'll have to ask Olly is the Mesu has a similar feature as that is my greatest fear when leaving the mount unattended for long imaging session.

Still torn between the Mesu and the GM1000. Just thinking instead of needing the extra payload for a C8 HD edge, i could just keep my Heq5 mount instead of selling it, and use that for planetary scope, then i dont have to keep swapping OTA's....

[perfrej]

Rick,

What are you going to put on the mount? Are you going to twin-barrel it? Have you calculated on the flexure? Total weight?

Personally, I am very confident that the GM1000 can handle at least 20 kg for imaging, but it will have to be a low flexre system, especially if you want the accuracy. In essence, flex is more of an issue than the actual weight.

So, spill your plan!

/per