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Mesu Mount 200

ncjunk

By ncjunk
in Member Equipment Reviews

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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If park is sorted, so is my purchase :D

What I did last night was just flick the stop switch on the Servocat, leaving it powered, then tonight put it back to on and it had retained its position. I believe if I do this and then switch off the servo cat but leave the Argo Navis then it will work the same.

Is your setup totally automated?

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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Summary:-

The Mesu Mount 2 is a hard mount not to like. From the base plate to the polar alignment adjusters the care and attention to detail is fantastic. every part seems to have been thought through with ease of use for the Astronomer as the prime objective. When operating, the mount is whisper quiet and very smooth so no more annoying gear clattering for my neighbours. The setup is simplicity itself, once the mount arrives, if you didn´t buy the base, all you need is an adaptor plate for your pier that has a 20cm diameter circular space in the middle and two holes drilled, one for the M12 center bolt and one for the M8 adjuster bolt (both included with the mount but you will need to Tap the hole in the plate for the M8 or buy another longer bolt and use that with a couple of nuts). One thing to note is that if your Plate is a lot wider that your Mesu then you won´t be able to use the mounting holes on the Mesu for putting your servocat controller on, so you will need to, obviously, drill your own (m3 or M4 can´t remember which) on the plate (just mentioning it so you have it in mind as it´s no problem).

It is that simple for mounting. When you buy the mount you must decide if you need losmandy/vixen adaptor or not as the mount does not come with one as standard. I used the ADM dual sadle from my eq6, drilled a couple more holes in another adaptor I had and fitted these two to the Mesu Dec Plate. You can see in the photos that the Mesu comes with an arrangement of tapped holes for attaching the Losmandy adaptor to.

The only thing left to do is follow the simple instructions that come with the mount and do a basic Alignment, drift align and then you are away. The Gotos are excellent and the guiding is very good with operation via the Argo Navis very simple indeed.

Remeber that you will need an ST4 cable for guiding as the PC usb port is only used for Gotos and does not have Park or guiding functions at the time of writing this (Park function is coming in the next firmware update).

The only difficulty you have is in deciding if the price of 4,500 is acceptable to you for a 100 kg low PE Observatory class mount. I know it was for me and after finally finishing testing it I can say you won´t be disappointed and in the unlikely event that your Mount breaks (I haven´t heard of any problems from four other people) the support from Lucas Mesu is second to none (he is fantastic).

Positives:-

Design of the base (keeps the pier adaptor simple)

Polar alignment adjusters (beautifull design and a joy to use)

Load capacity

Easy to guide with 5 sec subs

Argo Navis wheel design makes menu navigation easy

Routing of the cables tidy and well done (considering you can´t hide them inside the mount)

Comes pre-configured from Mesu so just works

Negatives:-

Connectors on the motors (there is no problem with the connectors they will be fine but I would prefer connectors more resistant to the weather....although these are not as bad as USB connectors!

No Ascom Park (this is due in the next release of firmware)

No Ascom Tracking off command (unable to turn off tracking but the Park command will be good enough)

2 hand controllers (Just being picky here, they work great together it´s just that I have to find somewhere to put them although I think Mesu does a great stand for the argo navis and the servocat controller can be hooked over a bolt on the pier)

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Jessun

Jessun

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Thanks for taking time to write this review. I bet MESU is climbing on Google hits...

I wonder about the park though. Am I correct in guessing that once the drivers are updated, you'll park and turn power off and motors disengage? Does that mean that if you bump into the CW shaft or OTA that it can move and lose memorized position?

I am clumsy like that...

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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Thanks for taking time to write this review. I bet MESU is climbing on Google hits...

I wonder about the park though. Am I correct in guessing that once the drivers are updated, you'll park and turn power off and motors disengage? Does that mean that if you bump into the CW shaft or OTA that it can move and lose memorized position?

I am clumsy like that...

Yes it does and I did it yesterday after I turned the servocat off.

I will set the park position up so that it parks with the mechanical lever for locking the axis next to its slot. so hit park and then if i need it locked down i flip the mechanical levers across on each axis.

It means you have to set the park so the roof clears and the locking lever lines up with its slot.....not a big deal.

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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the motors dont disengage but power is removed and although the mount doesnt move as freely as an eq6, in the same state, knocking it would put your alignment out. (it will be fine like that as the scope will only move if hit with a bit of a force. there is resistance to the movement though. So if you are working remotely you could leave it without the locks)

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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Just for everyones amusment who has been following this-

Last night i set everything for a second light but the cameras were playing up and the focuser stopped working...no problem, i thought, just restart and hey presto! a black screen with a flashing minus sign.

someone really doesnt want me using this mount!

oh well...lets start with a hard disc check then :angry:

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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I know it is less than 25kg as i can take it to the shed on my own.

with its flat bottom it will be easy to place on its base once at the dark site and set up.

You'll want to make sure you have space in the car and that when transporting it you dont bang either of the motors.

It is slightly heavier than the eq6 but is easier to fix in place.

It is definately possible to use on the road.

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  • 1 month later...
ncjunk

ncjunk

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A quick update seeing as you put smiley faces!

The mount is working flawlessly and every single sub comes out useable. You are left just to fight with the

usual Focus, Dew and moon. So no more mount worries. I left the servocat and ArgoNavis turned on

in the observatory in between clear spells and it was like that for 5 days. On reconnecting with the PC

and firing up the PC it went straight back to the exact same position for NGC 281 so the subs matched

perfectly.

One thing I have found is that I have my pc under the counterweight shaft and I keep banging my head

on it and knocking it out of alignment. It´s only an issue at the moment as I am having PC issues and

keep forgetting to get up slowly! This is after I have switched it to Stop to turn the motors off (if the

motors are on I just end up hurting my head but keeping alignment!). It´s

my own stupidity thats annoying on that one though.

So, I have found I can move the mount using the PC to a position that enables the roof to close, I

go outside and flick the switch to STOP on the servocat and I can leave it until the next clear spell.

It all works fine but I can´t fully automate it until I get an Ascom update. By fully automate it I mean

I need a park feature, an ability to turn off tracking and the ability to Sync the mount to coordinates

defined via the Ascom driver. The tracking is important as if the position of

the CCD doesn´t match the position of the mount I need it to turn off trcking automatically and

provide a warning in the software. I have other options now in that I can check for CCD Position

and automatically sync the mount to the CCD position (if the ability to sync the mount via the

Ascom driver becomes available).

Another cool thing is that if I can sync via the Ascom driver I can move the mount to a random

sky position and do an internet Astrometry solve and auto align the mount from the result.....

......I´m like a broken record I know but I really wait a decent Ascom driver for this :p

To recap:-

Mount works like a dream.

I can leave it on so as not to require re-alignment

On the ED80 with a 285 chip CCD I am getting 0.2 rms on the guiding error at 5s guiding (both axis)

Here´s the NGC 281 I did which is 27 x 900s HA everyone perfect (apart from slightly soft focus :rolleyes: )

post-1827-0-54507500-1351512088_thumb.jp

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ncjunk

ncjunk

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There is an Ascom driver which allows simple Goto.

There is an update in developement which offers more functionality to the Ascom driver like a Park.

I´ll email servocat and try and find out when the update is scheduled for.

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Ah - you like the Mesu mount, Olly? I haven't really noticed that :biggrin: Nice reviews in ATT and AN by the way.

/Thommy

Sorry! I know I'm boring but I have (or rather use) only three bits of astro equipment that I consider perfect and Yves' Mesu is one of them.

Olly

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