What Mount?

[Jorden]

hi guys

Im new to AP and wondering what mount i should pair up with a William Optics Z61 APO, the CEM25P, Celestron Advanced VX or the Heq-5 Goto. 

They are all roughly the same price and have the roughly the same load weight etc.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

As a relative newbie myself I cannot give too much advice but I would say either of them are fine mounts.

You do not say what you want to do imaging or observing but assume with the Z61 you are looking at imaging.

I have a HEQ-5 pro, connected to a laptop so I can use stellarium or Cartes du Ciel (a highly recommended alternative to Stellarium) never actually used my hand set of the goto. I also have a WO Z73 APO and seems a really good setup for imaging.

Steve

[Jorden]

Cheers Steve

Yeah i will be using the z61 for imaging

Thanks for the input

 

Jorden

[Skipper Billy]

Personally I would choose the HEQ5 for two main reasons - they are very easy to strip, tune, rebuild but mostly so you can use EQMOD which is just brilliant.

[gonzostar]

I will throw spanner in the works. I have used only the AVX mount for the past 3 years and had no problems with it personally. Really easy to set up and align etc.  I cannot vouch  for the other mounts tho. 

Dean

[serbiadarksky]

14 minutes ago, gonzostar said:

I will throw spanner in the works. I have used only the AVX mount for the past 3 years and had no problems with it personally. Really easy to set up and align etc.  I cannot vouch  for the other mounts tho. 

Dean

AVX is a luck or not.

It can sometimes be extremly good, sometimes as bad as possible.

[Jorden]

Thanks all,

Im personally leaning towards the Heq 5 i reckon

[Anthonyexmouth]

I wasted 2 years dithering on choice between those 3 . Got the heq5 and so glad I did. Eqmod makes AP so much more enjoyable compared to the handset, I used the handset 3 times before installing eqmod, would never go back, also, so many users out there to give advice. 

[Anne S]

Ioptron do Commander Ascom driver to use with the ZEQ25p. I use it with my IEQ30pro for starparties. It works very well and does away with the handset. I also use Eqmod with my eq6 at home which works well. One point, the Ioptron mounts have less periodic error. I use pec correction in Eqmod to make my guiding smoother. I never worry with my IEQ30pro.

[Hallingskies]

1 hour ago, Skipper Billy said:

Personally I would choose the HEQ5 for two main reasons - they are very easy to strip, tune, rebuild but mostly so you can use EQMOD which is just brilliant.

What he said.  Especially about EQMOD.  If you are getting into AP then chances you'll wind up using a laptop to run your camera, so it may as well run the scope and do pulse guiding as well.

[gonzostar]

1 hour ago, serbiadarksky said:

AVX is a luck or not.

It can sometimes be extremly good, sometimes as bad as possible.

I must have got extremely lucky with mine then. If i had to choose again and what people are saying then I would choose the HEQ5