New Mount Ioptron iEQ45 PRO V2

[hograt]

Hi,

I decided to upgrade my excellent 10 year old EQ6 PRO with a new mount - not because there is anything wrong with it but more because of it's mileage and a vision that things move on and improve with time.

I was more concerned with portability than previously because I no longer own an observatory since moving to Cheshire.  I already owned an Altair Astro 200mm F8 Ritchey–Chrétien which has been an excellent OTA so I read up around Altair's iOptron IEQ45 PRO and compared this the the AZ-EQ6.  This mount is clearly less popular than the various EQ6 mounts but there are plenty of sources of praise and the cost is only marginally higher than the more recent Skywatcher AZ-EQ6 mount.

While I was not too budget constrained, I decided the EQ8 was far too heavy to be portable and the CEM60 likewise.  Wanting my cake and to eat it, I was not prepared to wait long lead times for other mounts.  I knew Altair Astro were due a new batch of mounts and as promised the notification email arrived so I made the purchase.  

As usual, Altair Astro provided prompt service and on Monday I received the IEQ45 and have just set it up with a guide scope and cameras.  This part takes a little planning as the objective it to build a configuration that takes no more than 5 minutes to transfer from house to garden.  I've become accustomed to running the whole set from my study, through a single USB repeater cable and a Linksys Powered USB Hub.  This configuration did not appear to create any problems for the mount, which is interfaced via a brand new Ascom driver.  

This evening is forecast clear skies so my plan will be to perform some capability tests for pointing accuracy,  PE and guiding accuracy.  I think it will take several sessions to assess this adequately because I strongly believe user error during setup (balance) and polar alignment are large contributors to mount performance (I see this from time to time when my EQ6 simply does not perform as well as usual).  

Weather and time permitting, I will continue to give feedback in this thread as and when available to act as a point of reference for the mount - given info is limited in the UK.

Best regards,

Martin 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very interesting. Looking forward to the results

[Zakalwe]

Nice looking setup.

I'd want to tie up the wiring loom to the saddle clamping bolts....USB sockets aren't made to have weight hanging off them. The SX filterwheel has the USB socket mounted directly onto the motherboard and have been known to become damaged quite easily.

[hograt]

Thanks for the comments.  

Very good point about the wiring loom .  I have a cable anchor stuck to the base of the camera which does support the weight of the cables - it's just out of shot .  I'd much rather have it up and out of the way though so I'll take a look.

Cheers

Martin

[hograt]

Predictable, the weather delayed first light until last night and then the conditions were not ideal.  A combination of fast moving cloud cover and gusts of wind were problematic.

Moving from an EQ6 with EQMOD, the objectives for the evening were (i) polar align and then attempt to star align using a combination of tpoint and camera (in other words remote alignment) (ii) to attempt autoguiding through SkyX.

To make things challenging the session was carried out at a focal length of 1624mm, with guiding via a guidescope at a focal length 400mm.  With my cameras this will be equivalent to a resolution of 0.82"@/pixel for the main CCD and 2.68"/pixel for the guider CCD......mmmm.

Polar alignment was easy enough to do on the mount because of the combination of hand controller guidance and the easy adjustment on the mount.  Much better than with the EQ6 PRO.

From the zero/home position I slewed to Kochab but it did not land on the CCD.  I solved the image and added the results to the pointing model.  I proceeded to work around the sky to the east of the meridian until I had a rough model with 12 points.  After that, every object landed on the centre of the CCD (field size 19.01' x 14,2').  I was happy with that.  Much better than my EQ6 PRO.

Slewed to M13 and rattled of a few shots before retiring for the night.  These were guided 10 minute subs.  I have not calibrated the image below - I've only applied a histogram transform in PixInsight.

Given the sky conditions, I think this was a good first-light for the mount.  

Thanks for reading,

Martin

[fwm891]

Great thread - any further updates on the mount? I'm in the same position at the moment comparing the same two mounts...

[Davey-T]

I've had an iEQ45 (not the pro version) for a few years, the main use of it is for a portable setup for star parties.
It is nice and light but recently been playing up in the guiding department and I did consider your Avalon mount as  a replacement Francis.
I could buy the necessary parts to upgrade it to pro spec, HP worm, finer pitch wheels etc but have decided to buy a new heavier mount, probably a 10Micron 1000HPS.

The 45lbs capacity is overated for imaging, I've just about finalised my dual imaging rig at around 30lbs and it's struggling to cope, worked fine with about 20lbs, hopefully the pro version will be better.

Will probably keep the iEQ45 for solar with the Technosky 152.

Dave

[View2]

On 4/30/2015 at 00:18, hograt said:

Hi,

I decided to upgrade my excellent 10 year old EQ6 PRO with a new mount - not because there is anything wrong with it but more because of it's mileage and a vision that things move on and improve with time.

I was more concerned with portability than previously because I no longer own an observatory since moving to Cheshire.  I already owned an Altair Astro 200mm F8 Ritchey–Chrétien which has been an excellent OTA so I read up around Altair's iOptron IEQ45 PRO and compared this the the AZ-EQ6.  This mount is clearly less popular than the various EQ6 mounts but there are plenty of sources of praise and the cost is only marginally higher than the more recent Skywatcher AZ-EQ6 mount.

While I was not too budget constrained, I decided the EQ8 was far too heavy to be portable and the CEM60 likewise.  Wanting my cake and to eat it, I was not prepared to wait long lead times for other mounts.  I knew Altair Astro were due a new batch of mounts and as promised the notification email arrived so I made the purchase.  

As usual, Altair Astro provided prompt service and on Monday I received the IEQ45 and have just set it up with a guide scope and cameras.  This part takes a little planning as the objective it to build a configuration that takes no more than 5 minutes to transfer from house to garden.  I've become accustomed to running the whole set from my study, through a single USB repeater cable and a Linksys Powered USB Hub.  This configuration did not appear to create any problems for the mount, which is interfaced via a brand new Ascom driver.  

This evening is forecast clear skies so my plan will be to perform some capability tests for pointing accuracy,  PE and guiding accuracy.  I think it will take several sessions to assess this adequately because I strongly believe user error during setup (balance) and polar alignment are large contributors to mount performance (I see this from time to time when my EQ6 simply does not perform as well as usual).  

Weather and time permitting, I will continue to give feedback in this thread as and when available to act as a point of reference for the mount - given info is limited in the UK.

Best regards,

Martin 

What is that on there, a big mak or sct with dew shield and a fraction guide scope?

I just returned the iEQ30 pro to iOptron for this 45 pro mount. I'm just doing viewing for now with a 5" APO. What you have set up there with the AP stuff seems inevitable however.