Astro-Physics Mach1GTO vs 10Micron GM1000HPS

[jjongmans]

That's a "win win" for a software guy like myself

[ollypenrice]

In my opinion ASA treated their earlier customers so badly that no-one should ever buy anything from them again. Forgive me but I do hold this kind of view. Put it down to old age.

I understand that the Mesu does not suite the remote observers but when you have about 150 hours of continuous imaging at 2.4 metres without dropping a sub you get to be a fan.

Olly

[perfrej]

The remote control abilities have a great part in my selection criteri for a mount. The reasons are two; I will have go totally remote as I live in a fairly light polluted area and I do like to sleep

What 10Micron has done in terms of mount software is really good. It is so remotely controllable that it immediately won my heart. Currently I am writing a small application that talks to the camera via MaximDL and to the mount via TCP/IP. The purpose is to quickly build a pointing model by repeatedly slewing around the sky to evenly spaced points and at each point taking a five second shot, plate solving it and refining the model to the solved position. With the documentation given it's a no-brainer.

Encoders... Encoders... I have the decided that a mount needs encoders. Period.

/per

[vdb]

Indeed in the early days they where to busy to iron out the bugs and where not really responsive to say the least ... which led to some unhappy customers in the early days.

Today it's a mature company with a factory that is really amazing, I talked to someone who visited it just recently it's clean, well organised and state of the art equipment.

Per I do understand your preference for the Micron, but ASA has the same encoders and the pointing model is now able to take 20 minute subs at 4 500 mm .... unguided ... longer if you go medium focal length ...

As for remote I thought TCPIP control was available, but Teamviewer is what I use as it gives me instant result of the images rolling in.

/Yves

[jjongmans]

Currently I am writing a small application that talks to the camera via MaximDL and to the mount via TCP/IP. The purpose is to quickly build a pointing model by repeatedly slewing around the sky to evenly spaced points and at each point taking a five second shot, plate solving it and refining the model to the solved position.

This can already be done with MaxPoint (also from Cyanogen like Maxim DL).

Also the software that comes with the ASA mount has this functionality.

Teamviewer works great in terms of remote control. It also works great on a tablet (or phone), so it is very easy to monitor your setup.

I think I finally made up my mind after months of research... It's going to be the ASA DDM60PRO. Next question is; where to get it?

[perfrej]

I believe MaxPoint keeps the model in software. I want the mount to keep the model. I'll write the little [removed word] myself

/per

[ollypenrice]

Well, if ASA have re-invented themselves as a company and sorted out the mount it has to be attractive, I guess, especially to remote imagers.

As for where to buy it, I'd just say go with a professional outfit who reply to Emails.

Olly

[rrb24]

Hello All

Resurrecting this thread to ask a couple of questions about the 1000HPS. I'm also looking to upgrade my NEQ6 Pro mount to a beefier yet portable option to eventually do imaging (again). I am purely visual at the moment (do some solar and planetary imaging but that does not need precise tracking) so my question about the 1000HPS is whether it can be used by a visual observer? That is, can I construct a minimal pointing model by centring stars in an eyepiece and going from there? I have done CCD imaging in the past but would prefer to do without the hassle of using a computer by the mount for now...

Thanks for your input.

Roberto

[perfrej]

Oh yes, you can build a 100 point model with the handset and your eyes

On a serious note, since the model is kept in-mount and can be made with the handset there is no issue. You get good pointing accuracy with just a few stars. I shot my first unguided images with the GM2000HPS with less than ten points in the model.

Since the last post by Olly in August of 2012 (above) I have obtained a GM1000HPS to complement my GM2000HPS. The 1000 is less than 20kg to carry around as is really fast to set up. It will fill your need and keep you armed for AP.

/per

[rrb24]

Cheers Per. Very useful info.

Roberto

[Gildan]

Bringing up the thread again.

First of all, hi all! I've been looking all over the net for info that would help me decide which mount would be the best to go for and, as usual, I end up in these forums (feels as if I've known some of you for a long time now). So, I decided that it was time to join in. Wrote a "hi all" in the welcome forum.

I am also in the process of upgrading from the NEQ6 and have the GM1000HPS and the AP Match1GTO as two of the options, being the Taka EM200 and the almost ruled out ASA DDM60 the other two.

As I have no permanent setup yet (plans on that once september is here, but not a certainty) I am looking for a portable mount and lightweight enough that I can at least pickup from the car right on to the tripod (my back is not what it used to be with a spinal disc herniation) and set up rather fast so, as soon as full darkness hits, everything is ready to go for imaging. As I have a 45 minute drive to and from the imaging area, I have to start to pack up early enough so that tiredness doesn't hit while driving (usually, no later than 04:00 am unless I've had a nice and long saturday afternoon siesta). So, imaging time has to be optimized as much as possible.

The equipment that will go on the mount won't be far too heavy as it needs to remain mobile, and the longest FL I'll be using will be 800mm. Now, with all this into account:

DDM60 - if I have read it right, this mount would be out of the picture as it takes quite a bit to setup correctly, about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Now, I could be totally wrong, I'll let those of you who has this mount to let me know (remember, the setup process has to be repeated from scratch every imaging session). Another drawback is its PC dependency; I would have to either keep the NEQ6 for visual or risk a stoning! (I might keep it anyway...)

10 Micron GM1000HPS - this one looks very very interesting and just on the limit weightwise. What I am not sure however is the time it takes to set it up and ready to go, although it seems that its not too long. Also, its ability to track without the need of guiding makes it very attractive although I don't know if the required precision in setting it up can be achieved in a movable environment.

AP Match2GTO - it hasn't been ruled out just in case I can't, for whatever reason, go for the 10Micron.

Taka EM200 - There are quite a few things I don't like of this mount such as it also needs a PC to get it going (fall back to NEQ6 for visual), the mechanics are quite clearly outdated and, considering other mounts in the market, I feel it's cost is a bit too high, even if prices have dropped considerably in the last few months. However, it's very portable and very fast to set it up and ready to go (and is the only one on this list that I have seen in action).

Any ideas?

Dan.

[perfrej]

Dan,

With your criteria, AP and 10m are the ones. My preference, obviously, is 10m. I like the unguided performance and I like the simplicity. Moveable setups can just as good accuracy as fixed ones if you are careful with where you put the tripod. A millimeter of sink on one of the legs throws off a model. You need gravel, asphalt or concrete under the tripod.

/per

[Gildan]

Per, thanks for answering.

Yes, I guessed that would be your preference (you have, after all, a couple of 10Ms!). How long would you say it would take me to set up the mount each night?. I imagine that would depend in some measure to how many points are included in the model. Whereas in winter time there is no problem, in summer we have very little imaging time (in july, we can't start earlier than 11:45 pm!!). I gather, from what you say, that it would be no problem to set it up well enough each night so as to be able to track unguided (half an hour per sub is great, no more time needed).

The ground is quite stable and quite hard in most areas of our observing/imaging site. No concrete or asphalt I'm affraid: it's in the middle of nowhere.

I think I have read enough about this mount and I believe I got it all sorted out short of seeing it live in action. Other than the remaining doubts mentioned above, all there is to it is ordering it.

Dan.

[perfrej]

I'd say you're good to go in about ten minutes plus whatever your scope takes to get hooked up on the mount and to your computer. Quick level with the legs, rough aim at N, three stars, adjust, ten stars - shoot!

/per

[ollypenrice]

DDM60 - if I have read it right, this mount would be out of the picture as it takes quite a bit to setup correctly, about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Now, I could be totally wrong, I'll let those of you who has this mount to let me know (remember, the setup process has to be repeated from scratch every imaging session). Another drawback is its PC dependency; I would have to either keep the NEQ6 for visual or risk a stoning! (I might keep it anyway...)

Dan.

From the experiences of the owners I know, six months to a year would be nearer the mark...

Olly

[Gildan]

I'd say you're good to go in about ten minutes plus whatever your scope takes to get hooked up on the mount and to your computer. Quick level with the legs, rough aim at N, three stars, adjust, ten stars - shoot!

Well, 10 minutes is not too much and easily done while waiting for the sky te get fully dark. I believe that's it!. Thanks, Per.

From the experiences of the owners I know, six months to a year would be nearer the mark...

Olly

Interesting. I'll tell a friend of mine who, in the around 2 years I've known him, he's taken some 2 or 3 images at most, spending all the rest of the time trying to get his equipment going. Either he enjoys the tinkering with equipment bit or he's No.1 candidate for World's most patient person!.

Dan.

[psemil]

I would be curious to know Jeffrey ( jjongmans ) opinion about ASA DDM 60.

For me options to upgrade from Losmandy G11 are: ASA ddm 60 and 10 micron 1000 HPS (since booth have absolute encoders )

[buzz]

This excellent discussion on this thread persuaded me to part with £6k on a 10 micron 1000HPS.  It was a very close thing with the AP Mach 1. On the one hand, tried and tested, on the other, innovative. Per's own work on developing a robust ASCOM driver and his fantastic model maker program (think MaxPoint, but better) were the clincher.  (Per, if you are listening, you should ask 10micron for a commission!)

Anyway, I was a little sceptical at first. The mount finish was superb but I had some doubts about the claims of others; that they don't bother to auto guide.

First light was last night. In the park position, I centred Polaris with a red dot finder and ran a three point model. I was about 30 minutes out. Without doing anything, I ran the model maker for a dozen refinement points and 10 minutes later I was ready.  Per was not exaggerating.

At a low declination (the most sensitive to drift) I ran a 10 minute exposure, first guided and then unguided. The guiding was trying to chase seeing - so I set 0.2 as the Maxim aggressiveness and 0.25x guide rate and re-ran.

The results were astonishing. The unguided exposure had pinprick stars. CCDInspector noted some field curvature and a tiny aspect - the guided one was the same with a marginal improvement in aspect.  Both of these test were run in slightly breezy conditions too. Roundness (from Maxim) was better than 0.05 and actually increased with my first attempt at guiding.

The only downside to this mount is its low profile  - which makes tripod leg clashes with a long refractor more likely. I have designed an extender (same concept as the EQ6 one) and should get that made up for me next week.

I also tried it with dither. Before, with the EQ6 mount, the DEC backlash caused all sorts of problems when trying to execute dither and I would waste precious time waiting for the guiding to bring it back into alignment. With the 10 micron, the dither (through guiding) was executed in three cycles.

A big thanks to the folks here - it certainly helped me make a tough decision.

[perfrej]

Me exaggerating? Noh!

Thanks for the kind words, Chris! It is a nice mount and will most likely give you excellent service for many years. The GM1000 is definitely a worthy smaller cousing to the GM2000, GM3000 and GM4000, and they all share the same firmware and modus operandi. When you outgrow the 1000 you just get a 2000 and keep going

The GM2000 definitely doesn't need guiding as I have done one-hour subs with perfectly round stars. The GM1000 can possibly need guiding for longer focal lengths and scopes with a good wind-catch, but for below a meter and a half focal length it should be fine without guiding. No harm in guiding, though, as you have well seen. I never did guide a 10Micron mount myself but will have to try it eventually in order to further hard-test the guiding routines in my driver.

Keep it up!

/per

[buzz]

For the record, here is the extender I had made for the 1000HPS mount. With the FLT132 mount and a filter wheel, I can just swing past the legs 5 degrees past the meridian. If anyone wants the drawings - I have posted them on the 10Micron forum or can mail PDF files to you.

[NickMorris]

Hi Buzz,

How do you get on with your tripod extension?  I need just the same thing for a longish refractor but was concerned about flex.  Do you get any flex and how long can you run an unguided exposure?

Many thanks for any info

Nick

[buzz]

Just fine. With a FLT132 and a filter wheel, it just grazes past the legs and I can image up to 5 deg beyond the meridian before I have to double check the DEC setting

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Regards

Chris

[buzz]

Sorry hit send before answering the full question. The extension is very solid. The couplings to the tripod and mount are via three M6 bolts. There is no central EQ fixing here. It has no bearing that I can tell on unguided subs. The quality of the model (and as I found out whether or not you tightened the clutches properly) that dictates the tracking performance. I have done 10 min subs with only 20 points which are better than my previous mount, autoguided. Others go for much longer with 40 or 50 points. I do run an autoguider but really as a backstop. (6 sec exposures, low aggressiveness and slow guide rate. ) It gets a small pulse every minute or so.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Regards

Chris

[buzz]

Life is not all sweetness and light in the 10 Micron club. The mount and its software is not without some gremlins. The model building needs some careful planning for success, especially necessary for the accuracy of the first three alignment points. The tracking model is susceptible to rogue sync points. It does not filter them up front. I accidentally synched a point on the wrong side of the meridian and the mount completely flipped out, convincing me it had broken. Clearing the model point made it work again.

As the sky model becomes more complicated it can intermittently throw out some ripples into the space time continuum, on my mount, resulting in DEC oscillations of several arcsecs. I had trouble guiding these out, or guiding any drift out in general. When it seems susceptible to oscillate, long guide exposures and gentle guiding actually make it worse - short, fast and furious seems to work better. I think it is stiction but since there are in-effect, nested control loops on the mount, it is difficult to be sure.

[buzz]

I eventually threw in the towel with my GM1000HPS and changed to a Paramount MX. The contrast between the approach of the mounts is very interesting. In the UK, they are very similar prices and the thread should read Mach 1 vs. GM1000 vs MX. I think it is valuable to share these experiences.

Looking back on months of head scratching, in my temporary setup the 1000HPS was not able to consistently deliver unguided subs, even after running a 40 point model. Every aspect of the mechanical and software setup was carefully checked. The dual tracking for some reason just would not deliver - often with drift in RA but not in DEC. After several firmware changes, the autoguiding response was stable but took a long time to settle after a dither command. The users with permanent setups seem to fare better. In my particular case, a lot of doubt was cast on the other parts of the system as the cause of the issues. With so-so guiding, each night was a gamble and not an experience I was looking forward to for an outlay of over £6k. 

Reluctantly I changed to the MX on my dealer's recommendation. I ordered it with the Polarscope and got an adaptor made up for the same tripod I used for the 10Micron. Although this mount is targetted for an obsy, it works in a temporary setup too. It is about the same weight as the 10micron, especially when you take into account it has the electronics built in. It is quite a bit larger though and is less friendly to transport.

Setup time:

From the moment I open the back door to assemble the MX in the garden, to turning on the power and starting an imaging sequence is now 15 minutes. The polar scope is consistently aligning within 2 arcminutes, in under a minute. (The 10micron has no polarscope and required several 3-point pointing models and adjustments to get that close). The Azimuth adjustment on the MX base and the base itself is very precise with little play. It re-positions on the tripod within an arcminute. On the 1000 HPS there is a small gap between concentric ledges on the 10micron base assembly and the azimuth adjustment does not always deliver the full adjustment you expect, requiring several iterations of the alignment model.  In my temporary setup, the 1000HPS would take about an hour on average to start imaging, especially if I was doing a tracking model. To run the model also required close scrutiny of clock accuracy, pressure, temperature and altitude, requiring internet connections and a mobile weather station.

Periodic Error:

10 Micron's strong suit is its PE control, essential for unguided exposures. It was well within +/-0.5" in practice. Out of the box, my MX had +/-2 arcsecond pk-pk and after PEC, +/-0.9 . For that reason, in my temporary setup I use an off axis guider. The MX mount guides extremely well, with no overshoot, backlash or slugged response. In other words, it moves in a predictable manner, with my range of focal lengths from 300-900 mm . 

Tracking Performance:

After my previous concerns with the 10micron tracking performance, I hesitantingly repeated the guider experiments on the MX with the ST4 cable unplugged. With the same tripod, scope, guider and focuser, the MX does not show any appreciable drift in RA or DEC (polar error was under 1'). To my mind, the simple substitution of the 10 micron for the MX fixed my prior tracking issues. With the MX - in a temporary setup, I don't bother with a pointing model. Sequence generator pro reduces any target pointing error to 1 pixel within 1 iteration.

Reliability. As far as mount communication dropouts are concerned, it was not uncommon to have a crash with the 10Micron over its LAN line during a night's imaging. I mount re-boot would cure it. The MX is more robust on its USB cable - sharing the USB with camera, guider and filterwheel. The USB is extended 20 metres using a USB over Cat5 extender.

Conclusion

Both mounts are about the same price but approach the same problem from a very different angle. I think the 10micron mount deserves a permanent setup with an extensive pointing and tracking model so that it can run unguided. It needs the ultimate in rigidity and flexure of the system components for it to thrive. To my mind it's design, such as it was in the spring of this year, is not optimised for guiding but that could change with further firmware improvements. In a temporary setup it necessitates model building to establish polar alignment that takes up precious imaging time. The clutch system on the 10micron is notoriously tricky to do up tight and may have been the cause of my tracking issues for all I know. (A plastic tool for tightening is now available).

The MX is a red beast and surprised me with its accurate polar alignment using the polar scope. The cable management is excellent, is quick to balance and has positive engagement of the gears as well as a transport setting. It does not use a clutch system that can introduce slippage. The TSX supporting software works on Mac and PC and now works with ASCOM. Although the MX is an obsy class device, it is surprisingly easy to use in the field too. My PEC is effective but not yet effective enough for unguided operation. As it guides well, the remaining PE is not an issue. My small gripe is its connector system. The connectors are OK but at high latitudes, tricky to get connector access as the strain reliefs foul the AZ adjuster. My first MX imaging experience was also a first light experience with Sequence Generator Pro. I ran it for three nights in a week, using SGP's automatic meridian flip feature and PHD2. Stars had a 5-9% aspect ratio in 20 minute exposures. Overall though, in my temporary setup, three words sum it up. It just works. 

I can now focus on taking pictures.