JTW Astronomy Mount - Looks Interesting

[Mike M]

Well my mount arrived and I've finally got my head around the Onstep software, the mount is an absolute beast!! did a bit of planetary last night and it is rock solid tracking at 6 metres of focal length for Jupiter.  My first bit of astro in over a year https://www.astrobin.com/7wtngz/

[tooth_dr]

Gosh those are impressive results from @peter shah  how much is down to location in terms of guide figures and will the mounts perform like this out of the box?

[Mike M]

Yep, it may have been a bit of a rocky start for JTW, however Mark has redeemed himself and has been listening to feedback of his customers.  I cannot fault his service now for JTW - hats off for producing such a solid mount! 

Here's some more planetary from last night at F20 with my 12" Skywatcher Quattro

Jupiter: https://www.astrobin.com/mnn9ek/
Saturn: https://www.astrobin.com/h44fee/

Cheers, Mike

[Mike M]

The only gotyas that I have found with the mount is getting used to the Onstep software.  Here in Australia, our longitude is East - so when you have to put that into the Onstep config for your lat/lon, you have to put it in as -148.  Same with the local timezon - instead of +10, you put in -10.  Apart from that it's solid.  Tracking is very nice - I had 0.63" in PhD2 last night and one guy has even managed 0.39" at 2000mm! crazy.. 

Cheers, Mike

[ollypenrice]

9 hours ago, Mike M said:

The only gotyas that I have found with the mount is getting used to the Onstep software.  Here in Australia, our longitude is East - so when you have to put that into the Onstep config for your lat/lon, you have to put it in as -148.  Same with the local timezon - instead of +10, you put in -10.  Apart from that it's solid.  Tracking is very nice - I had 0.63" in PhD2 last night and one guy has even managed 0.39" at 2000mm! crazy.. 

Cheers, Mike

I may be missing something but if the tracking precision (as in guide RMS from PHD) is 0.39" then surely that's what it is, as calculated using the guider's focal length and pixel size? The focal length of the imaging scope doesn't contribute to this calculation except in the case of an OAG, in which case it's also the guide scope and factored into the RMS calculation anyway. 

Olly

[scotty38]

@ollypenrice Is the point that it's harder to stop a big, heavy "longer" scope flopping around and getting "non-round" stars so to still end up with 0.39 at 2000mm means the mount is taking the scope by the scruff of the neck and keeping it in control? Just asking that's all?

 

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by scotty38

[Stuart1971]

Does look like a good solid mount, and a good price too, and first reviews seem to be very promising too.

I personally like the look of it, and I think it will give the Mesu’s  a run for there money as it’s a much cheaper price, and still has a proper function to adjust Alt Az for PA, which the latest Mesu does not, you just have to mess about with spanner’s and such like which I think was a real backwards step…

I am watching this mount and it’s new customer reviews with interest, it may well be my next big upgrade….👍🏻

[david_taurus83]

ENS Optical will be the official UK dealer with stock inbound..

 

[newbie alert]

13 hours ago, Mike M said:

The only gotyas that I have found with the mount is getting used to the Onstep software.  Here in Australia, our longitude is East - so when you have to put that into the Onstep config for your lat/lon, you have to put it in as -148.  Same with the local timezon - instead of +10, you put in -10.  Apart from that it's solid.  Tracking is very nice - I had 0.63" in PhD2 last night and one guy has even managed 0.39" at 2000mm! crazy.. 

Cheers, Mike

You're not guiding for planetary imaging are you Mike?

Really no need as stars move differently to planets ( planets are in the equatorial plane) hence why you have sidereal, lunar, solar tracking rates

[Stuart1971]

1 hour ago, david_taurus83 said:

ENS Optical will be the official UK dealer with stock inbound..

 

Yeah, and I wonder what mark up they will add, just look at the price of there second hand kit….😮

[ollypenrice]

4 hours ago, scotty38 said:

@ollypenrice Is the point that it's harder to stop a big, heavy "longer" scope flopping around and getting "non-round" stars so to still end up with 0.39 at 2000mm means the mount is taking the scope by the scruff of the neck and keeping it in control? Just asking that's all?

 

 

I get you. On the other hand a long refractor can have a bigger moment, perhaps, than a folded light path instrument.

Olly

Edited October 3, 2022 by ollypenrice

[david_taurus83]

6 hours ago, Stuart1971 said:

Yeah, and I wonder what mark up they will add, just look at the price of there second hand kit….😮

Not bad?!

 

[Stuart1971]

1 hour ago, david_taurus83 said:

Not bad?!

 

Actually no, I thought it would be higher than that…very interesting….🤔🤔

[newbie alert]

23 hours ago, Mike M said:

  Tracking is very nice - I had 0.63" in PhD2 last night.. 

Cheers, Mike

But your cem70 was easily capable of that.. 

 

[newbie alert]

8 hours ago, Stuart1971 said:

Yeah, and I wonder what mark up they will add, just look at the price of there second hand kit….😮

Well you know the price direct from JTW 

[Mike M]

12 hours ago, newbie alert said:

You're not guiding for planetary imaging are you Mike?

Really no need as stars move differently to planets ( planets are in the equatorial plane) hence why you have sidereal, lunar, solar tracking rates

I was guiding on one of Jupiters moons for a test with PhD to make sure everything was all happy I haven't polar aligned or even done a 1/2/3 star alignment at all - there is no starmap set on my mount at the moment.  

Bit of a story behind my mount - UPS absolutely TRASHED my mount for delivery to Australia, palleted box fell apart, counterweights fell out, mount got molested.. and after all that, it's running and tracking perfectly.  This thing literally fell off the back of a truck and took it in its stride! Mark is getting a replacement mount to me via the Australian distributor Sidereal Trading in a few weeks.  The 2nd counterweight doesn't even go onto the shaft properly because the hole for the counterweight shaft has been squished, that's how hard it fell! So yeah no deep space astro for me till my replacement due to not enough weights - can't use my heavy ZWO ASI2600MC

Cheers, Mike

[Mike M]

3 hours ago, newbie alert said:

But your cem70 was easily capable of that.. 

 

my CEM70 was a piece of crap.  It was constantly having hardware issues - bearing play, worm issues, dec/ra board issues.  When it worked it was great.  When it didn't work which was more often than not, it was extremely frustrating.  Not to mention how buggy the iOptron commander was, it would constantly crash.  The last time I had the mount repaired I sold it and used the money to pay for the Trident  Go onto the CN forums about the "CEM70 has arrived".. 95 pages there and most of it is bad experiences

Cheers, Mike

Edited October 4, 2022 by Mike M

[newbie alert]

17 hours ago, Mike M said:

my CEM70 was a piece of crap.  It was constantly having hardware issues - bearing play, worm issues, dec/ra board issues.  When it worked it was great.  When it didn't work which was more often than not, it was extremely frustrating.  Not to mention how buggy the iOptron commander was, it would constantly crash.  The last time I had the mount repaired I sold it and used the money to pay for the Trident  Go onto the CN forums about the "CEM70 has arrived".. 95 pages there and most of it is bad experiences

Cheers, Mike

I've got a cem 60 which has been awesome..assumed the 70 to be the same if not better...

When I got mine the 70 had just been released but couldn't see where the extra £600 was for 10lb extra payload and in black...

[Mike M]

On 05/10/2022 at 04:28, newbie alert said:

I've got a cem 60 which has been awesome..assumed the 70 to be the same if not better...

When I got mine the 70 had just been released but couldn't see where the extra £600 was for 10lb extra payload and in black...

Yeah I had ordered the CEM60 as well as I had heard such good things about it.  Unfortunately the CEM70 had replaced it right when I ordered so had to get it (what a mistake that turned out to be!) 

It's been a few weeks now since I got the P75 and it's been going really well - took a little bit to get my head around the onstep software but got it mostly nutted out now.  Never was able to get details like this with the old CEM70 thanks to the oscillations or jitters https://www.astrobin.com/g5yeuc/

Cheers, Mike

[newbie alert]

12 minutes ago, Mike M said:

Yeah I had ordered the CEM60 as well as I had heard such good things about it.  Unfortunately the CEM70 had replaced it right when I ordered so had to get it (what a mistake that turned out to be!) 

It's been a few weeks now since I got the P75 and it's been going really well - took a little bit to get my head around the onstep software but got it mostly nutted out now.  Never was able to get details like this with the old CEM70 thanks to the oscillations or jitters https://www.astrobin.com/g5yeuc/

Cheers, Mike

Glad it's working for you.. as with any new equipment it takes abit of time to get used to it, let alone something that's relatively new out..

But still don't quite get why you're guiding for planetary 

[markse68]

They’ve just announced that they will bring out 6 new mounts next year 😳 The Minotaur P35 is the first new mount- 35kg capacity from a 12kg head.    But it’s €5000 +tax. Not sure why it’s so much more expensive- it will have built in absolute encoders though which are extra for their first mount.

Mark

 

[Jon A Chard]

Great and exciting news!!!

I took a leap of faith and ordered two JTW Trident 75's through JTW distributor - ENS Optical.  They were passed through UK customs today and Steve has offered to personally deliver by end of week.  After reading the very positive review by Peter Shah and with many supportive conversations with Steve @ ENS, I'm confident that these will meet my expectations. 

I'm hoping to provide some images of the packaging and products as soon as possible and a lightweight review once I have them mounted on the pier. 

I'm no equipment specialist, but I do have fairly extensive experience with NEQ6/EQ6r/EQ8, CEM 26/40/60ec/120.