New mount time

[Knighty2112]

Got a chance to upgrade to a better GoTo mount for my scopes over my current Celestron 8SE GoTo mount that I use for my C8 SCT, Celestron 4SE mak & occsionally my Opticstar ARS90 ‘frac, and one that will also hold my Celestron Omni 120mm f8 ‘frac too which currently is too unwieldy to try to use on the 8SE GoTo mount, so currently looking at the following two mounts;

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-mounts/celestron-advanced-vx-mount.html

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-mounts/skywatcher-az-eq5-gt-geq-alt-az-mount.html

I like the idea of the Skywatcher AZ EQ Mount which will hold two scopes in AZ mode, which is currently something I can only do on my Skytee II Mount manually. Plus the fact it can alternate between AZ and EQ mode too which seems a big plus. The Celestron AVX Mount on paper at least seems to offer less, but they do seem to get good reviews from what I’ve seen anyway.

Anyhoo, any advice from any members who owned any of the two above, or amazingly both at some point on either the pro’s and con’s for both mounts would be welcome before I splurge out any cash. Currently visual observing, with some planetary/lunar imaging with my ASI 120mc camera. No big hankering to go into DSO’s astrophotograhy as yet (although that might change in future), so don’t want to get into the silly price range for mounts for doing that kind of stuff.

Muchos gracioso in advance for any responses!  

[garryblueboy]

I’ve had both both have there merits I’d say the Celestron software is better than the Skywatcher and the AVX was more stable the AZeq5 is nice but found the clutch system a bit awkward sometimes the OTA would slip .

[Knighty2112]

37 minutes ago, garryblueboy said:

I’ve had both both have there merits I’d say the Celestron software is better than the Skywatcher and the AVX was more stable the AZeq5 is nice but found the clutch system a bit awkward sometimes the OTA would slip .

Hi Garry, when you say the OTA would slip do you mean it would pop in the dovetail clamp, or slip on its axis because of the clutches?

[garryblueboy]

Slip on axis due to the clutches 

[Luna-tic]

I have an AVX and it's a good mount for the C8 (I have the Edge)  visually. May be borderline for a steady imaging platform for a long focal length but is great with shorter F/L's, I use a WO GT81 (F/5.9, 478mm F/L) on it, too. Go-To is accurate with the ASPA and 3-star alignment, even better with Starsense. I recently bought a Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro and it is awesome, but may be a bit over your budget if you're looking mainly at the AVX and EQ-5.

[Knighty2112]

1 hour ago, Luna-tic said:

I have an AVX and it's a good mount for the C8 (I have the Edge)  visually. May be borderline for a steady imaging platform for a long focal length but is great with shorter F/L's, I use a WO GT81 (F/5.9, 478mm F/L) on it, too. Go-To is accurate with the ASPA and 3-star alignment, even better with Starsense. I recently bought a Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro and it is awesome, but may be a bit over your budget if you're looking mainly at the AVX and EQ-5.

Thanks for the response.