Say hello to my lil' friend.... (GM1000HPS)

[Tim]

Have just taken delivery of a new mount, a 10 Micron GM1000 HPS.

It's a big step up in price from my trusty EQ6, i'm hoping that it will be a big step up in allowing me to sleep in bed while leaving my kit running for a few hours too. Performance wise my EQ6 was very capable indeed, so hoping for good things here too, especially where very long exposures are concerned (2-3hours plus) which is the side of imaging which really interests me.

First observations - it's very heavy, and attention to detail seems excellent, I like the way the allen bolts that need removing from the baseplate were nicely greased

It bolted straight on to my spare pier top plate (lucky owner of a FLO orange pier ) so no messing about with new holes thank goodness.

Should keep me busy for a while I think.

Cheers

Tim

[Spikey]

Looks fantastically well made Tim.

[nightfisher]

looks nice, fingers crossed it performs better than the EQ6

[Tim]

looks nice, fingers crossed it performs better than the EQ6

If it doesn't there'll be trouble!

Even if the performance is basically the same, there are aspects to this mount which should allow me to pursue extreme length exposures.

But i'm hoping it lives up to the billing

[petercoxphoto]

What is the draw of exposures that long vs stacking 10-20 minute subs? Won't you be overexposing stars at those sorts of exposure times?

Cheers,

Peter

[Tim]

For certain targets, mostly planetary nebulae, the only way I have found to get detail in the really faint areas, or any sort of definition is to expose for a very long time.

I do this quite a lot really, out of personal interest in the absolute extent of emissions from the centre of the nebula. It started with some tantalising glimpses of the tertiary ring system around M57 that came though on some long subs I did a few years ago.

With a Ha filter in particular, detail and structure starts to come through in dark nebulosity that you dont see otherwise.

It helps that I am imaging at long focal lengths with a slow scope, and that most of the regular targets are not near blinding stars

[Jessun]

That looks very nice! Is it run on 12 or 24 volts?

Are you effectively going robotic with this beauty?

/Jesper

[perfrej]

Congrats!

I take it you got it from Ian... He should have supplied you with my driver and I welcome every bit of feedback I can get. Eagerly waiting for mine to come along to complement my GM2000HPS. Should be any day now!

/per

[Tim]

That looks very nice! Is it run on 12 or 24 volts?

Are you effectively going robotic with this beauty?

/Jesper

Robotic? Well I did do a bit of a dance yes

It's 24v.

[Tim]

It has a manufacturing date of Dec'12 Per, the paint is almost still wet

[Daniel-K]

oooo very nice Tim that would be my future upgrade mount of choice too, it looks solid and very well put together. look forward to first light

[ollypenrice]

Nice one, Tim. I know that Per and Jonas are big fans of 10 Micron and find them remarkably accurate. I've been amazed by what you've coaxed from an EQ6 at your kind of focal length so I think you'll find this plain sailing. Very nice indeed.

Olly

[jackrussell0232]

Oh no, someone's bought an expensive mount. This means only one thing - there won't be a clear sky during the hours of darkness again until the moon is back to waxing gibbous - maybe even longer.

Seriously though Tim, would be great to see how you get on with this. There seems to be a dirth of reviews of this mount.

[Jessun]

Robotic? Well I did do a bit of a dance yes

Haha, I was more picking up on the fact that you've got yourself one of best mount for a completely robotic setup. That combined with your wish to sleep more got me thinking that something was in the pipeline.

/Jesper

[steppenwolf]

This is a very exciting acquisition, Tim, I hope you get some great results from it.

[Tim]

Had a chance to use the mount last night. It wasn't really clear, but just enough to get everything aligned.

The control box can be connected through ethernet or RS232. I only had one ethernet socket available in the obsy, but managed to dig out an old ethernet hub and get everything connected through that. After using the brilliant EQMod for so long, it was a bit daunting going back to basics, and to a handset, but after reading the manual through and sleeping on it, it all seemed to make a lot more sense. I am hopeful that an EQMod type interface will come into being at some point, as the facilities available in the handset are excellent, it would be nice if they were presented in a more accessible GUI. I don't see particularly well in the dark, and the handset text was a little fuzzy to my eyes, even with glasses on, and besides, having to put on/take off glasses is inconvenient in the dark I find. For most things though there is a virtual handset which runs on the controlling PC, and while it mirrors the functions and capabilities of the handset, it is easier to read and use, especially from the warm room

Polar aligning it was a dream come true compared to what I am used to. The alt/az adjusters are like silk, and tiny increments of movement are possible. Add in the Polar Align routine in the handset and the mount was very quickly lined up. I spent the rest of the night just refining it, and moving from centring eyepiece to camera. The handset software can calculate any Polar Aligning error, as well as any cone error in the optics.

It is possible to set the slew speed at 15°/second, which is frighteningly fast, and yet even whizzing around the obsy like that the accuracy of the mount is very impressive, every target I tried it put it dead centre of the camera, almost pixel perfect.

I have a few optical issues to sort out with a recent upgrade and then hopefully will get to put the mount through its astrophotography paces. And after a suitable period I will write a more thorough review.

I got on really well with the EQ6, but if you have ever climbed out of a van and into a Jaguar, well, it's that kind of feeling. And rightly so!

Cheers

[perfrej]

Congratulations, Tim, and welcome to the world of solid and reliable mounts! I'll guide you through the model building process and you'll find you not only have near-pixel goto accuracy but also tracking without guiding even at long exposures. I get around half an hour with mine, unguided and with a focal length of almost a metre and a half!

/per

[Tim]

Thanks Per

I nodded asleep early last night 3.30am or so and thought it was time to go in.

If I remember rightly the Polar Align Info said there was 00.01.33" error in thje polar aligning model. It also stated how to fix it but by the time I found that I was half asleep and didn't understand it. What is the realistic goal to aim for for this figure?

One thing I did notice, as I was changing eyepieces and so on, even cameras, the mount was beeping a bit from time to time, but it never lost the star/planet it was aiming at. Does the mount automatically correct 'nudges' or little bumps? It seemed to?

My imaging train will be 1951mm focal length, F7, FOV = 17.6 x 22arcmin, resolution 0.96 arcsec/pixel.

I had some issues with funny shaped stars last night, but this will be a feature of the optics, will sort that out, maybe later.

Cheers

Tim

[ollypenrice]

It is possible to set the slew speed at 15°/second, which is frighteningly fast, and yet even whizzing around the obsy like that the accuracy of the mount is very impressive, every target I tried it put it dead centre of the camera, almost pixel perfect.

Guardian, 13/01/2013

The tubular steel-and-glass projectile which landed just eight inches from the Royal Corgis' kennels at Buckingham Palace, yesterday, was inadvertently launched by Coventry astronomer Mr Tim Jardine. Prince Charles, who was deep in conversation with a rose bush nearby, escaped uninjured.

You be careful with that thing!!!

Olly

[Tim]

Especially with it's temporary counterweight Olly

Hopefully the extra one will arrive this week, until then I had to make do

(the temporary weight is a spare pier adaptor, which might well form part of a home made pier. Polar aligning was so easy that I may well take this to star parties, or on holiday. Anybody know anywhere with good dark skies? )

I'm hoping to be able to set it to follow the ISS one night, and maybe get some piccies of it, I dont know if that's possible yet. If not, at least I can use it as a missile launcher :D

[jaspalchadha]

Great I am looking to buy this mount. Honest opinion ?

[perfrej]

If you ask me, a nuthead with two 10Micron mounts, the answer is simply: great mounts! I am very pleased with my two babies, one of which is now at a remote site in southern France. The 1000 is on  my balcony under a hood, listening to the christmas rain

/per

[Tim]

Will reply when I get access to a PC at work later

[jaspalchadha]

Thanks guys..

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[Tim]

Hi,

In brief, I love this mount

I'll start with the negatives though and get them out of the way;

1) The clutches are prone to slipping if the scope is imbalanced. The mount is very sensitive to balance, which probably helps with the accuracy. Now I have heavy cameras and filter wheel and OAG stuck on the back, and as I park my scope on its side to allow the obsy roof to close, If I want to alter or swap or remove the camera, the mount will swing round in DEC if I don't allow for the movement. If I parked the scope in its polar pointing home position this would be less likely to happen, but it is sometimes convenient for me to work on the cameras when the scope is parked on its side. Like you I have an Esprit (150), and that is quite a long tube with a lot of weight all at one end, which exacerbates the problem a little, as that big chunk of glass at one end makes for a good lever!

What this "feature" means is that you are forced to use good practice when swapping kit, making adjustments etc, rather than just locking the mount off tightly, as you can with an EQ6 for instance and possibly exposing the gears to unnecessary strain.

Well that's the bad points out of the way, everything else I love

The mount is very very very accurate, if you know where something should be, pop the details into the handset and it will be centre screen, every time. I have used it recently to find and photograph comets ISON and Lovejoy, by uploading the files from the minor planets centre into the mount you can find all these faint things, and it will track on them too, rather than on the stars. (or on satellites, asteroids etc).

The polar alignment routine means that if you take the mount away to a dark site or star party, as I did in September, you are aligned and ready to go in minutes, and the little weatherproof covers for the handset and the mount are just an added touch to keep everything working as it should.

You don't need to guide the mount. I do, as it goes, which i'm sure irritates Per , but I just feel more confident leaving things run for a few hours while I go inside, without checking if the stars are pinpoint for each sub. But you can watch the guide graph in PHD and you soon realise that you have something a bit special I was doing 10 minute subs at the top end of Kelling field this year and still getting round stars even with the normal gale howling around us.

The mount always knows exactly where it is, so you can loosen the clutches, whizz it round, change scopes, whatever, and your very next GOTO the target will be bang on again.

It is Italian made, and I still think it is one of the nicest looking mounts available. Every edge is round and smoothed, every bolt is stainless steel, every thread is cleanly cut, in short, the quality of the engineering boosts your confidence in the ability of the mount. (The counterweights have a matched counterweight themselves opposite the locking nut ) Also the quality of the electrical fittings is nice, all quality cabling with screw fittings where possible.

Vixen and Losmandy dovetails are allowed for, definitely plug a GPS unit in too, and of course the ethernet connection makes using it over a network a doddle.

Umm, can't think of anything else, but will be happy to answer any questions you may have?

Cheers

Tim