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Mesu Mount 200

ncjunk

By ncjunk
in Member Equipment Reviews

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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This is a thread to provide my thoughts on the mount, my journey to first light and finally how it performs.

The mount will be the last purchase for a while (it cost 4,400 so a fair bit) and hopefully a good one.

The mount came in a wooden case but was obviously shaken around a bit in the trip down from the UK, I don´t

think anyone paid attention to the this way up notices! The packaging looks to have protected it perfectly even

if it had moved around a bit.

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The mount appears surprisingly small but this maybe because I have put it straight into the Garage so there

is no reference to compare it against. Tomorrow I will place the EQ6 head next to it for comparison.

The construction and appearance is very "Industrial" looking and workman like. I have seen many comments saying

it won´t win any beauty contests but I quite like it. The bolts for adjusting Polar Alignment look wonderfull and give the

impression that they should be accurate and easy to use (I´ll confirm this once I have tried them).

The cables are the one area that could perhaps be critisised with the connectors for the motors exposed to the elements and

the cables routed outside the mount in some sheathing. Having said that the cables are securely tied down either side of

the connectors stopping any movement, and placed on the motor so that they are held against the casing, so I don´t think

they will cause any problems. The cabling would best be described as workman like and functional but I think it will work well.

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I have bought the mount with no losmandy adaptor so will be adding one on. I have figured out I can bodge one onto the faceplate here:-

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Just by adding an adaptor plate between my ADM losmandy from the EQ6 I have and the Mesu. (2 holes required in my adaptor)

To attach it to my pier I have got lucky in that I made the EQ6 adaptor too big. The bolts are 23cm apart i.e. you can fit a circle with a diameter of 23cm in the center of the plate and the mesu base is?? 20 cm diameter! So in theory I can just turn my EQ6 plate upside down and drill one hole. The one hole is required so that I can fit a bolt through which will then be attached to the horizontal Polar Alignment adjuster as seen in the following:-

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The only thing that is of slight concern is I don´t think the Ascom driver for this mounts controller can Park the mount. I don´t want to do an alignment everytime I start up as I am running an automated Observatory. This is one area where I am going to have to find out some trick to keep alignment.

I believe a firmware change maybe in the pipeline to allow parking the mount but I´ll check.

Tomorrow, depending on kids and family, I aim to at least remove the EQ6 and adaptor plate and try to drill the Adaptor hole. Sunday I will aim to try to sort out the Losmandy.

Looking forward to using it but quite scared in case it doesn´t live up to expectations....it´l be fine!

Neil C

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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Here´s a pic with the Mesu 200 and the EQ6 side by side. I still think they are comparable sizes and the Mesu isn´t

as big as I had thought it was from the photos:-

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Earl :- The Avalon looks ok but I would want to see PE graphs, it isn´t much of a capacity increase on the EQ6 (not too bad a 10kg increase on Astro photography) and the EQMOD is good to have. but if the mesu ends up with a park function it will do everything that is required with a low and slow PE. Possibly, depending on PE graphs, the EQ8 maybe a good option but its a fair few months away.

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Anweniel

Anweniel

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Congratulations on the new mount Neil, I am certain it will be a splendid edition for you. I must be alone in thinking that its cosmetic appearance is quite groovy, I really think they look nice! When you compare the price of these to other heavy duty mounts they seem really well priced too. Good luck getting your automated system going with the new mount and I will look forward to your further review.

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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Congratulations on the new mount Neil, I am certain it will be a splendid edition for you. I must be alone in thinking that its cosmetic appearance is quite groovy, I really think they look nice! When you compare the price of these to other heavy duty mounts they seem really well priced too. Good luck getting your automated system going with the new mount and I will look forward to your further review.

I love it....its a work of art!

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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And me, in an "I'd like one of those if I received a large unexpected bequest from an unknown relative" kind of way...

James

All very well, but I'm about the oldest relative I have and all the young 'uns are looking at me for their bequests. Little do they know!!!

Olly

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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Very nice, function over form always a good sign, one day maybe.

Could you list the reasons for moving from the 6 to the Mesu?

Periodic Error...and...er periodic error.

it has vastly improved pe of 4 which means i dont have to waste my life endlessly trying to tweak like the eq6 to improve tracking.

also load capacity as i want to put 22kg on which although possible on the eq6 effects the tracking and means you waste even more of your life endlessly tweaking and adjusting.

The mesu should have a low pe and high load capacity out of the box meaning i only have to do polar alignment and balancing. :D

plus it will hopefully be the last mount i will buy.

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r3i

r3i

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Nice review Neil - wishing you very success with your new mount. I was also quite surpirised it was a similar size to the EQ6, it has always looked so much bigger in the other photos I've seen.

Hopefully the park function will surely come soon in a firmware update.

Looking forward to regular progress reports on how you get on with the mount, both short and long term.

Many congrats :headbang:

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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Have had a bit of a delay as I was feeling under the weather (ironically whilst the weather itself was perfect for astronomy!)

but today i managed to drill a few holes in the eq6 mounting plate, turn it upside down and stick the mesu on top.

tomorrow I may power it up if I'm lucky and pick up my adaptor and mount the telescope!

hopefully try an alignment this week.

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