New EQ8 Mount test

[Rob_Jn]

I had some worries about putting my 40kg of 14" on an EQ8 but tonight put those to bed!

Rough polar alignment, can't focus accurately due to electronics problem, wobbly mounting plate but I couldn't resist a quick test.

60s unguided at 1900mm FL, I think I'm going to like this mount

[JeremyS]

Nice looking setup Rob

Jeremy

[derrickf]

It looks the business! Your roll-away shed is also rather neat.

I really liked my EQ-8 for the year or so that I owned it, the only reason I sold it was due to the need to constantly fettle it to perform well at long focal length and slow F Ratio which together require long exposures to overcome the noise floor when imaging small, faint fuzzies.  With your much faster F ratio you will get away with shorter exposures and, in my experience, you should get repeatable good guiding performance with subs around 300s.

Enjoy it - you have what I think is the best bang for the buck in heavyweight mounts.

Regards

 

Derrick

[Rob_Jn]

Thanks Derrick. I generally have to keep at 300s or below because of light pollution where I live, non narrowband anyway. I'm glad to hear you think I'll be able to get repeatable performance, so many words of caution out there  about the EQ8 with a long tube and big moment of inertia. I was prepared to change the OTA if things didn't go well but I have a lot of affection for my old Newt!

Thanks,

Rob

 

[derrickf]

I suspect that many of the cautionary tales about the EQ-8 are told by people who have never owned or used the mount; any mount will struggle with a 14" diameter 6 foot long OTA in strong winds but in quiet conditions you should be fine provided you don't have one of the occasional "lemons" that inevitably slip through the QA net at manufacturers like Skywatcher - you can't produce a mount at 30% of the price of the premium manufacturers without making some compromises. I don't know of anybody who has been saddled with a poorly performing EQ-8, the odd lemon has, in every (rare) case I know of, been repaired, replaced or refunded.

I look forward to seeing some images from you when the mount is bedded in, assuming we ever get a big enough hole in the clouds to do any imaging

 

Derrick

[ollypenrice]

17 hours ago, derrickf said:

I suspect that many of the cautionary tales about the EQ-8 are told by people who have never owned or used the mount; any mount will struggle with a 14" diameter 6 foot long OTA in strong winds but in quiet conditions you should be fine provided you don't have one of the occasional "lemons" that inevitably slip through the QA net at manufacturers like Skywatcher - you can't produce a mount at 30% of the price of the premium manufacturers without making some compromises. I don't know of anybody who has been saddled with a poorly performing EQ-8, the odd lemon has, in every (rare) case I know of, been repaired, replaced or refunded.

I look forward to seeing some images from you when the mount is bedded in, assuming we ever get a big enough hole in the clouds to do any imaging

 

Derrick

 

I'll just quibble amicably with the 30% here. The Mesu and pier is £5000 and the EQ8 and pier is £3100, so the EQ8 costs, I make it, 62% of the Mesu. Given that the Mesu is, I think anyone would agree, a vastly superior mount in terms of construction, materials, QC, accuracy and payload I think the comparison becomes more thought-provoking. The Mesu has no difficulty whatever handling long FL imaging in 30 minute subs. I shot dozens at 2.4 metres (0.66"PP) and never lost a single one. It also handled a dual rig of 14 inch ODK and 10 inch photomak, though for other reasons we abandoned this bit of madness!

But, yes, say it quickly: £1800. Even in the spending-mad world of AP that is a considerable sum.

Olly

[derrickf]

No quibble, I was responding to the OP's comment about the warnings that EQ-8 would not be suitable for his purposes and was referring to the mounts from Astrophysics, Software Bisque, 10 Micron and others (these I think are the ones most people would immediately think of when considering premium mounts) - Mesu200 is an outlier from this bunch and has some characteristics other than price that would tend to differentiate it from the others mentioned. For the record, I have owned 3 Astrophysics mounts and a Paramount in the past.

Just a point on the pricing (I am using the mount head costs since the picture posted by the OP makes it clear that a pier was not needed) the current EQ-8 is £2450 and £4499 so the EQ-8 costs 55% of the Mesu - I only mention this for completeness rather than dispute :-)

I currently have a Mesu200 as my primary mount and routinely image at long focal length (platescale around 0.5 arcseconds) with a relatively slow scope so I know its capabilities and the foibles of its combination with the Sitech controller very well and have posted on these forums about the quality of guiding with this setup.

Had the OP been looking for advice about buying a mount for his OTA I would have recommended the Mesu should be on his shortlist  but, on this occasion, I was simply offering my opinion that the EQ-8 he had already bought would, based on my first-hand experience, be up to the job with the caveats I mentioned at a considerably lower price than the more commonly used alternatives.

 

Derrick