Darren Hill

Does sound like there is an electrical issue. Were you able to find out what the issue was?

The new bolts were purchased in the UK and shipped to me here as a kit... they are now cheaper to acquire and some of that was shipping. If you cannot adjust the mount with the OTA onboard, you cannot drift align, or make use of Alignmaster or the Polar alignment routine on the hand controller. In my opinion, you rate a mount at 35lbs for astrophotography - then I believe it's a reasonable specification that it's accurately adjustable at that weight without bending components or cutting my hands open. I know Chris, I'm a little deluded in my expectation. That said, Synta brought great tracking performance to the masses who otherwise might not ever get into astronomy. Is the AP mount worth the cost? For most probably not. It's lack of Go-To makes the Celestron AVX, EQ5, and Bresser mounts look very attractive - but I constantly hear people bemoaning the lack of bearings on the DEC axis on the AVX, for example - making guiding sometimes virtually impossible on an astrophotography advertised mount. The places where the Chinese make cutbacks or compromises is sometimes totally bewildering. The "Total Cost" of ownership in money and time is something that's hard to nail down until you actually use these products longer term. That's probably why the Losmandy, Vixens and others are still in business.

It's unfortunate that the exchange rate is making Vixen more expensive. I will give Vixen credit - I've owned Synta products and Vixen products: Vixen is generally better quality, better mechanically, and better consistent performance. My EQ6 required some modifications and a tear down before it really reached it's potential. It had the craptacular bendy bolts that couldn't be adjusted with my MN190 on the mount. $200 for a tune-up kit, $100 for new bolts, and several hours of adjustments and un-torquing of the main head pivot bolt at 150ft-lbs of torque and yes - I can finally say that EQ6 is a pretty good performer. I know the AZEQ6 has addressed many of these shortcomings - but you know and I know that Chinese mounts are spectacular awesome bargains or complete steaming piles of agony. I wouldn't blame you with picking the Vixen - especially if portability is a priority. It's your time under what precious little time you guys get in the UK - enjoy yourself and get what makes it pleasurable. Darren.

Chris, sorry for the late reply - The red dot finder hot shoe adapter is 3D printed, and I purchased it online at an astronomy dealer. They no longer carry it, but is similar to this link http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p5641_Lacerta-adapter-for-mounting-red-dot-finders-to-camera-flash-shoes.html Huge timesaver!

Hi Chris; I am using the Astrotrac with a Nikon D7200 and the cheaper Nikkor 70-300mm F3.5-5.6 telephoto lens. Your experience and comments piqued my interest. After dropping the Astrotrac polar scope, I had no luck collimating the scope and replaced this with the Polemaster, and have had good success so far with this setup. I'm running without the declination arm, and I am getting luck with 240mm FL, and two minute exposures. I'm looking forward to pushing to 3-4 minutes next time out. Love your pic.