Anyone have any experience with Visionking Scopes?

[Brownthunder93]

Ok, so this is gonna be a long one so bear with me 😂

I recently picked up a vision king 8” newt, complete with an old style EQ5 mount for £120. I have a few questions and I hope someone can answer them.

 

first off, the old EQ5 mount has no mounting plate that I can connect a dovetail to, it’s just a plate with some screws on them to mount the rings directly to, similar to what you’d find on the Skywatcher 130EQ2 setup. Is there anyway to change this so that I can mount my scope with a dovetail so it’s easier to set up and strip down?

 

Secondly, the mount is without tracking. Now it looks like an EQ5, and all the bits are in the right place for an EQ5, definitely not an EQ3-2 but I’m sincerely hoping that I’m right. I’ve just bought an EQ5 go to upgrade kit, so I hope that works, has anyone got any experience installing this kit onto an older EQ5?

 

Thirdly, I intend on imaging, and I’m aware that the scope is going to be too heavy for the mount to image with, so I’m going to downsize to a 6” scope. But in the mean time, is it worthwhile changing anything on the scope itself to boost its potential market value afterwards? Like changing the focuser etc?

 

Fourthly, is there a way to change a rack and pinion focuser to a dual speed? I don’t particularly have the money to go out and buy a crayford, and if I can, it would be better for me financially to upgrade a R&P.

 

Finally, does anyone have any experience with using visionking scopes? I ask because from my limited knowledge and use so far, it seems like a good scope, and given that it’s an 8” F/4 Newtonian and I paid a fairly low price for it, I’m a little loathed to get rid of it unless it’s pure garbage, which it doesn’t seem it is at the moment (but then again, I’m yet to use it for proper observing thanks to the sh***y weather we’ve had recently).

 

Any replies are gratefully appreciated!

[Brownthunder93]

http://www.visionking.com.cn/en/products_show.asp?p_id=299&c_pid=5
 

this is the scope and mount if anyone is interested 

[John]

It is not a Skywatcher EQ5 mount, old or new. It is closer to an EQ3-2 but not the same design. A different manufacturer. It looks very similar to this one:

https://www.astroshop.eu/telescopes/zoomion-telescope-genesis-200-eq/p,45319

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 18, 2021 by John

[Brownthunder93]

On 18/01/2021 at 02:10, John said:

It is not a Skywatcher EQ5 mount, old or new. It is closer to an EQ3-2 but not the same design. A different manufacturer. It looks very similar to this one:

https://www.astroshop.eu/telescopes/zoomion-telescope-genesis-200-eq/p,45319

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ahh great, good to know you can never trust a Chinese site to tell you the truth about what they are selling! 😂

 

So I’m now gonna start looking for a new mount!

[Cornelius Varley]

The mount is sort of EQ3 or 4 ish but not compatible with Skywatcher drives, I think only an RA drive is available for it. The telescope at f3.9 you would hope that at least it had a parabolic primary but I read somewhere that it is spherical. Even if the primary is parabolic, it would have to be well figured to give decent views.