Skywatcher AZ_GTI mount

[DavidJM]

Bit windy here and freezing to be honest but wanted to give the az-gti mount a quick try out

So set up - easy, levelled the tripod, switched on mount, located wifi address in phone settings, opened synscan app and pressed connect, no problems connecting!

Next chose brightest star alignment and selected Venus, then asked to select a second so picked Sirius

Told to manually centre Venus, and this is the first really good thing I like about this mount, you can unlock and use the mount completely manually without power, great when you just want to go old school star hopping or the batteries go (I have a power pack but thought I would see how it fairs on 8xAA batteries)

Set Venus in centre of view, pressed ok and off it slewed to Sirius (not forgetting to have loosely tightened the lock screws - first tip, don't over tighten)

Sirius appeared slightly off centre so followed request to manually centre, achieved easily with the app directional buttons having reduced the slew speed accordingly

And that is about it for set up, decided to pick on some easy targets just to see how accurate things were, Castor, Pollux, Procyon, Capella, Rigel all came in to view with only slight alignment needed

So in essence I have to say I'm pretty impressed, easy to set up and not a bad app - just need a bit more of a still breeze rather than the windy chill off the sea!

[happy-kat]

Sounds like a good first light. Enjoy.

[bomberbaz]

I always use a slightly de-focused star and cross-hair ep when setting up with the same mount. Find accuracy to be superb. Always get the target object into the view of a 25mm eyepiece. 

Get same result using a high powered ep and have it de-focused.

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

Goto accuracy isn't always spot on, but the object will be in the fov. Tracking is great for what it is. During my last session, the mount kept Venus in view for 45 minutes without adjustment. I even went back into the house, lost connection and went back out to carry on where I left off.

Sky Safari Pro works well enough also.