Zwo harmonic mount pretty much confirmed

[vlaiv]

I'm not overly impressed.

20Kg capable mount with 30" P2P for ~£2000 - I think I've seen that before

At least it is light weight at 5Kg.

 

[Daf1983]

Interesting. Is the laser the only way to polar align, or is there a polar scope aswell?! Surely the laser alone wouldn't be accurate enough for astrophotography?!

[tooth_dr]

1 minute ago, Daf1983 said:

Interesting. Is the laser the only way to polar align, or is there a polar scope aswell?! Surely the laser alone wouldn't be accurate enough for astrophotography?!

There is no way to polar align my mesu e200. I just got it rough by eye then used software to refine it. 

[nephilim]

3 minutes ago, Daf1983 said:

Interesting. Is the laser the only way to polar align, or is there a polar scope aswell?! Surely the laser alone wouldn't be accurate enough for astrophotography?!

Knowing how ZWO works, they will come up with an 'upgrade' for this mount with a proper polar scope in around 6 months time after everyone realise the laser doesn't work.
Of course they wont announce the upgrade until they have a big sale reducing the cost of this current mount, before they suddenly announce the arrival of the 'New & Improved' version. Just look at the ASIAIR Pro & subsequent ASIAIR Plus for my cynical opinion here 😒

Steve

[gilesco]

I think with the harmonic drive, the expectation is that you would use this for computer aided astrophotography only.

* As @vlaiv mentioned, the PE of harmonic drives means that auto-guiding is a must

* If you're auto-guiding then you may as well use the plate-solving methods for polar aligning

* The laser is likely to be disabled in countries where pointing a laser to the sky like this is sometimes illegal or at least tightly restricted - we've had instances in the UK by pilots in aircraft being blinded by ground laser beams.

* If the laser is available, it will be for a rough alignment, before software assisted alignment.

This isn't a product you would use if you wanted to do tracking only AP.

[nephilim]

6 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

There is no way to polar align my mesu e200. I just got it rough by eye then used software to refine it. 

The Mesu e200 is a bit of a step up from this though 😀

[The Admiral]

2 minutes ago, nephilim said:

Knowing how ZWO works, they will come up with an 'upgrade' for this mount with a proper polar scope in around 6 months time after everyone realise the laser doesn't work.
Of course they wont announce the upgrade until they have a big sale reducing the cost of this current mount, before they suddenly announce the arrival of the 'New & Improved' version. Just look at the ASIAIR Pro & subsequent ASIAIR Plus for my cynical opinion here 😒

Steve

Don't all companies operate like that?

Ian

[nephilim]

12 minutes ago, The Admiral said:

Don't all companies operate like that?

Ian

I think your spot on there 😂

[StarryEyed]

The thing I dont like about these mounts is the center of gravity COG is basically the telescope acting as a lever on the whole mount rather than over the RA axis of an GEM or over middle of the tripod on a CEM. I just feel its a design looking for a gap in the market that doesn't exist. I could be wrong, but I've worked with structural and mechanical engineering all my life and I just see pitfalls with these mounts.

[gilesco]

9 minutes ago, StarryEyed said:

The thing I dont like about these mounts is the center of gravity COG is basically the telescope acting as a lever on the whole mount rather than over the RA axis of an GEM or over middle of the tripod on a CEM. I just feel its a design looking for a gap in the market that doesn't exist. I could be wrong, but I've worked with structural and mechanical engineering all my life and I just see pitfalls with these mounts.

Yeah, I would still recommend a counterweight, believe it is an option, 20kg stated load with counterweight, 13kg load without.

On a pier this is less of a concern, but on a carbon fibre tripod, but of a worry.

I would like balance whenever possible, so would use a counterweight. Requirements will be different depending on your latitude.

They're not shipping until April, selling my current mount would be needed to be in the market for a new one.

Still a wait and see for me.

[Hogarth]

3 hours ago, Elp said:

At the price they're asking for they can keep it.

significantly cheaper than Crux or Rainbox Astro, but are there reason why... I've got a 'reaction and my own thoughts video uploading to YT' if anyones interested

 

[gilesco]

6 minutes ago, Hogarth said:

significantly cheaper than Crux or Rainbox Astro, but are there reason why... I've got a 'reaction and my own thoughts video uploading to YT' if anyones interested

 

Post the link, we can make our minds up over time Merry Xmas everybody!

[nephilim]

31 minutes ago, Hogarth said:

significantly cheaper than Crux or Rainbox Astro, but are there reason why... I've got a 'reaction and my own thoughts video uploading to YT' if anyones interested

 

@Hogarth I'd be interested if you can post details here 🙂

[Ken82]

Interesting mount, ideal for grab and go!

RST brought out a revised mount with encoders recently. I wonder if zwo will do the same with this mount? 
 

Ken 

[Elp]

1 hour ago, Hogarth said:

significantly cheaper than Crux or Rainbox Astro, but are there reason why... I've got a 'reaction and my own thoughts video uploading to YT' if anyones interested

 

I think given the option the majority would choose an eq6 pro. Also as it's zwos gen 1 product it needs time to prove itself. Other manufacturers are already generations ahead experience wise for this type of thing.

[vlaiv]

3 minutes ago, Elp said:

I think given the option the majority would choose an eq6 pro. Also as it's zwos gen 1 product it needs time to prove itself. Other manufacturers are already generations ahead experience wise for this type of thing.

Not sure if eq6 pro is main competitor to this mount.

At 5kg it is more geared towards mobile imaging? In that case, we are looking at lightweight mount in that price bracket that is better suited for that role?

How about this?

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/computerised-goto-astronomy-mounts/ioptron-gem28-ec-german-equatorial-goto-mount-with-encoders.html

It has encoders so you don't need to guide in the field?

[gilesco]

8 minutes ago, Elp said:

I think given the option the majority would choose an eq6 pro. Also as it's zwos gen 1 product it needs time to prove itself. Other manufacturers are already generations ahead experience wise for this type of thing.

Zero Backlash is the headline for this product, let us wait and see what the early adopters say....

[StarryEyed]

2 hours ago, gilesco said:

Yeah, I would still recommend a counterweight, believe it is an option, 20kg stated load with counterweight, 13kg load without.

.... 

 

This makes sence to me but add a counter weight and its another GEM with a 20kg capacity for which there is competition with better tracking. 

 

 

[gilesco]

1 minute ago, StarryEyed said:

 

This makes sence to me but add a counter weight and its another GEM with a 20kg capacity for which there is competition with better tracking. 

 

 

Yeah, and you know, the iOprtons range were next in line for my attention, still going to wait and see on this - sometimes the direction of innovation changes.

[nephilim]

1 hour ago, Elp said:

I think given the option the majority would choose an eq6 pro. Also as it's zwos gen 1 product it needs time to prove itself. Other manufacturers are already generations ahead experience wise for this type of thing.

Considering the price of the ZWO plus I'm sure it'll be prone to teething problems, I'd definitely take the EQ6 Pro over it any day of the week (you'd still have change left for something else as well).

Edited December 24, 2021 by nephilim

[7170]

It is a good price compared to say a HOBYM 140 (If that is what you are after), especially if it performs as one would expect from a HDM, naimly zero backlash, very quick response to guiding instructions etc.

Personally I expect more suppliers to bring out HD models in the future (especially for portable models) - harmonic drive motors are proven in many high precision manufacturing robotic processes (you don't usually see manufacturing robots with big counter weights hanging off them).

[wornish]

Very interesting early responses on here have to say. 

ZWO have certainly  "put the cat amongst the pidgeons" as the saying goes.  

I think we should wait and see what the real world tests show before writing it off.  

IMHO technology moves on last time I checked.

Edited December 24, 2021 by wornish

[ONIKKINEN]

Third (or thereabouts) the price of the RST-135? New product? No available user experiences publicly available?
I will expect that the first buyers of the mount end up being beta testers, and i certainly wont be one. If it really ends up being a decent product, rainbow astro has to adjust their price accordingly. Also, a bit worrying if it ends up being the case that the RST-135 is priced so high "because we can". Competition will be good.

But, if a fair bit of experience in the car industry has thought me anything its that no new product is ever released in a finished state. The first model of every new car is always faulty in some way that only gets fixed in the second iteration while the early adopters are really out of luck and have to fight the dealer to fix the issues. Might be wrong but will be pessimistic for this product too.

[nfotis]

Car industry is testing new cars much more heavily than other consumer items, because each new car is being sold in the millions.

Astronomy is still a niche market, without many economies of scale etc. So, ZWO may have done some 'alpha testing' already, but it will take some time and effort/money in order to get a tried a proven product. On the other hand, there's already experience with other mounts, so I suppose that they kept detailed notes of the good and bad things in previous implementations.

The whole system has the main advantage. Imagine an EQ6-R class mount, but weighting only 5 kg, and at nearly similar price.

What's not to like? Obviously, a few things.

We will have to wait, in order to find out. It seems that such drives require guiding in order to work well, you cannot depend on unguided performance. On the other hand, these promise zero backlash. Also, a loss of power could mean our scope toppling with the mount (ZWO claims an automatic brake for such an eventuality).

Waiting with interest for the reviews.

N.F.

EDIT. There's also a Sharpstar harmonic drive mounts in the wings:

http://www.sharpstar-optics.com/index.php/en/customization/389.html

 

Edited December 25, 2021 by nfotis

[nfotis]

Just noticed the label on a picture:

Telescope: 130mm APO with 900mm focal length. Image scale: 1 arc second per pixel, basically reaches the limit of the AMS mount. Thus, when photographing DSO objects, we don't recommend you use telescopes with longer focal length than this.

If that means I cannot use my C9.25 and Skymax 180 with that mount, that's a hard pass.

N.F.

PS. I don't know what's the limit of an EQ6-R, but I suppose that it should easily handle such scopes, even for DSO targets? I don't understand how these harmonic drives work, I suspect that there's some maximum control granularity which limits the mount to 1 arc second per pixel? Or 1000mm or so maximum focal length?