New member of the Mesu 200 club

[billdan]

Hi everyone,

Just to let you know I am the proud owner of a Mesu 200 and I believe I am the first in Australia to own one.

Lucas set all the firmware up for me and the installation went perfectly. I used the adapter plate to mount the Mesu onto my EQ6 tripod until I can get a pier sunk later this year.

The only thing I had to adjust was the RA ticks in servoconfig as it was a little slow over 10 minutes and I am really impressed with the mount.

I have attached the PHD guiding assist screengrab to check the Mesu un-guided performance over 1285 secs (~21mins) and also its guiding performance with dithering on NGC3372.

I have only my 8in F5 Newt on the Mesu at the moment, but I intend to put my Skywatcher 14in DOB up there, once I get some scope rings.

Cheers

Bill

 

 

[billdan]

I  forgot to put a photo of the mount and Obs.

[triton1]

Congratulations a very well engineered mount by all accounts.

[steppenwolf]

Congratulations on your new purchase - good choice!

[billdan]

Thanks guys, I should point out as a long time watcher of the SGL forum and reading all the positive comments on the Mesu is what influenced my decison to purchase one. 

I was worried about the RA spiking issue that some of the SGL users had, but has now been resolved with an updated version of Sitech software.  I am not getting that spiking problem and I am using the older version of Sitech (V0.09A) so I don't know whats going on there.

A bit of a background to who I am, I'm 66 yrs old and used some of my superannuation money to pay for the Mesu as a retirement present. I was born in England and lived in the Cumberland lake district until my parents moved to Australia when I was 12. So I have lots of relatives still in England and I hope to return one day and pay them all a visit.

Cheers
Bill

[ollypenrice]

This is such a good mount. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Olly

 

[iansmith]

Welcome to the club. I've had my Mesu 200 for about a year now and have had no problems with it. I use a n Edge HD11 at f/10 and on nights of reasonable seeing I get a total RMS of 0.5" (as reported by PHD2). No problems with it over the last year, not even the "spike" problem that other's have had. I should probably upgrade to the new software but it's working very well as is at the moment and I don't want to break it!

Cheers, Ian. 

[billdan]

Thanks for your warm welcome Ian, Murphys law has struck again.

My QHY12 camera is back in China getting repaired so I'm out of action now until it returns. Darn it.

Cheers

Bill

 

[iansmith]

Unlucky Bill. I hope they get it fixed and back to you pronto. 

Cheers, Ian.

[GraemeC]

Hi bill

good choice of mount.  How will you be acquiring scope rings for your 14" dob? I have an 14" xi Orion and I will be mounting it either on a Mesu or an EQ8.  I thought the user friendly approach would be to have rings that allow the OTA to rotate, to bring the camera/ eyepiece to an accessible position. I'm not thinking bearings, just a set of rings so that the tube can be turned.

graeme

[RayD]

I don't think you'll find any of us with Mesu 200 mounts having too many bad words to say Bill.  Looks like a great set up and great results so far.

Have fun with your new purchase 

[billdan]

My QHY12 is back from China (faulty electronic switch??), a 3 week turn around, how good is that! 
So I have been imaging again this week, will post images later this week.

Graeme - I was going to get a carpenter to make some scope rings for the 14in, but a mate of mine works in the air conditioning industry and he thinks he can get me a pair of 400mm diam steel pipe clamps for about $140.00. He is trying to source me a pair on a sale or return basis, so we shall see.

Ray - Thanks for the encouragment, I was imaging NGC6165 last night and my RMS average guiding was 0.42 arcsec. So I am very happy with the mount and the Scitech controller.

Cheers
Bill