More on the MESU mount...

[ollypenrice]

This has had a Heads Up before but it is now being sold through a dealer (whom I know) - Rob Lefeber in the Netherlands. If it does what it says on the tin this is the mount of mounts and cheap. OK 4000 euros is not cheap as in cheap, but Rob is saying he would realistically put up to seventy five kilos

on it!!! and with incredibly low PE and a smooth PE curve it should be pretty special.

There has been no attempt to 'style' this mount. It is a machine and looks like one. I think that's great.

I'm hoping to be getting some hands on experience of one, later in the year, which will be very exciting indeed.

Olly

[m.tweedy]

:DOOps I think Olly has developed a stutter

[Psychobilly]

Or to put it another way.. hmmm that's another fine mes u got me into - olly

[m.tweedy]

Or to put it another way.. hmmm that's another fine mes u got me into - olly

nearly choked when I read that:)

[Earl]

I think it looks great. I think i need to learn to walk first though

[syd_malicious]

I've looked at these with interest, particularly the fork type one. It seems very interesting but having researched as much as possible it seems to have a few short comings.

1. no PEC. I may be wrong as I have never used Argo-Navis but cannot find it mentioned anywhere on the site. I know the MESU mount site (correctly) that the main issue is of a smooth PEC that can be guided out but this still seems to be an oversight. From what I believe Tak mounts do not have PEC and people seem really happy with these but it would put me off getting a MESU mount.
   
2. the "permanent" mount seems really cumbersome.
   
3. there seems to be no facility to home the mount.
   

This is a very promising mount but the above shortcomings would put it into the "no" category for me. A shame as the actual mechanical and ergonomic design look very good, especially for a dual scope setup.

Paul

[ollypenrice]

Well, to my mind PEC is entirely useless. For visual use you simply don't need it because even an EQ6 or LX200 will hold an object in high powers for hours and hours. And when imaging you can't get it accurate enough for unguided and, when guiding, you turn it off so as not to set up conflicting signals. So what's the point?

I have a Tak mount without it. Not a problem. And I never use it at all on the other mounts.

I agree that these are best thought of as observatory mounts but that apart the spec ticks all the boxes for me. We'll have to see if it works as well as it reads!

Olly

[syd_malicious]

Agreed that for visual PEC is not an issue.

I don't agree about guiding. I know that some people feel that you need to turn PEC off but I have never done that and have not had an issue. Still that has mainly been with the Paramount that has a smooth PEC curve and most Paramounts can be trained to less than 1 arc-sec. In my setup this means minimal guider corrections and works very well; I think virtually all Paramount users keep PEC on whilst guiding.

I am not knocking the MESU as such as I think it is a very good piece of lateral thinking and has bags of potential. Perhaps offering it with a choice of controllers (the SiTech one seems very comprehensive and is what Planewave uses on the rather spiffy CDK700 mount) would be good.

It comes down to personal choice and I'd be very interested to see how the MESU mounts progress.

Paul

[steppenwolf]

That looks like a cracker - not pretty but that's not what it is about. No idea of scale but it doesn't look that big. £4000 isn't pocket money but its less than half the price of the obvious dream machines.

[ollypenrice]

I didn't know that Paramount users apply PEC and an autopguider. I think most owners of lesser mounts disable it, though, when guiding. A few don't but from an earlier thread most do. I might as well try it on the EQ6 to see what happens.

Olly

[syd_malicious]

Olly,

The think was in italics as I think they do . I really haven't had a problem though.

Doing a quick Google search turned up some pages such as this, this and this .

Quoting the penultimate paragraph from the last link "In summary, if the mount is well made, PEC reduces the strain on the autoguiding and ultimately produces better SNR, but if the PE is unpredictable, or the guiding system poor (flexure, seeing etc) then the two will fight and cause a problem."

The CloudyNights link does also discuss the difference between using a no-cables option (such as MaximDL direct guide) versus using n ST4 compatible cable and mount relays.

Ultimately I suppose it's whatever works best for an individual setup and it would be difficult to knock the results you get! I'll continue with PEC and autoguiding as they work for me though.

Paul

[jarbi]

Hi Olly,

A friend of mine has a Mesu mount in his home observatory in Belgium for more than a year, and he is very satisfied with it AFAIK. It is really very sturdy, silent and precise ! As an example, I saw one "demo" session on a star party when he was imaging Jupiter with a 30cm GSO Newton on it + DMK camera with 5x Barlow - the planet was just standing still on the chip without guiding and resonance for more than 30 min !!

I can ask him to contact you if you need more practical details/experiences.

cheers,

Janos

[ollypenrice]

Thanks Janos, that is very good to know.

Olly