Looking for a quiet mount

[AshleyCUK]

How noisy are tracking mounts?  I'm looking to buy either a Sky-Watcher Skyliner 200P FlexTube GOTO (built in motor) or a StellaLyra 8" f/5 M-LRN on an EQ5 tracker.  The thing is, looking at youtube videos the mounts seem quite noisy. I dont want to annoy the neighours in the small hours with a whining mount motor.  Are they as loud as they appear or are there more silent options for an 8" scope?

[Neil H]

Hi I have a HEQ5PRO with the Rowan belt and it's very quiet it had the Orion optics VX8L

 

[Celerondon]

Where are you located?  If you join or even visit an astronomy club then you should be able to hear an assortment of mounts firsthand.  There are always a variety of different mount technologies present at our club events and public star parties. 
 

I am impressed with the silky smooth and quiet performance of the strain wave mounts.  My experiences with Rainbow Astro and ZWO mounts have shown them to be quiet while slewing and silent otherwise. 
 

Don

[Martthebass]

I find my AM5 pretty quiet when slewing and tracking. You’d need the counterweight with an 8” though.

[DaveS]

My two DDMs are utterly silent when tracking or slewing, but since ASA stopped making them you can only find them second hand. It might be easier to find hens' teeth.

[Elp]

My ioptron gem28 and hem15 are very quiet, the former you'd have to listen very hard for it. Your pottering around in the garden will make more noise.

[Zermelo]

Both my SW mounts are essentially silent when tracking; I assume you're asking about the noise when slewing?

The problem with using SynScan on the SW mounts is that you can't set a maximum slew speed when using goto. For manual slewing there are 9 speed levels, and I find anything up to level 6 to be acceptable, noisewise (I share your concern for neighbours' sleep, especially if I'm out in the summer, when I might be aligning the scope at gone ten). However, goto operations (including alignment) always use the top speed, unless the scope is already close to the intended target.

One answer to this is to use the SW dual encoders ("FreedomFind") on mounts that support it (mine do). You can then slacken the clutches and move the scope silently. The downside is that the goto will usually be less accurate afterwards. Recently, I've been avoiding this by using the motors manually (at lower speed and noise) to get the scope somewhere near the next target, then issue a goto, which will be carried out fairly quietly. This approach preserves the goto accuracy. However, there's no answer to alignment, so I try to do that once only, at the start of a session.

As others have said, belt mods - for those mounts that support them - may be the answer.

[inFINNity Deck]

My GM3000HPS is completely silent when tracking, not a sound to be heard. I need to check the hand-controller or virtual keypad to see if it is stopped or tracking. Slewing does produce some sound, but here too one can choose between various slewing speeds which should make slewing pretty silent.

Nicolàs

[orly_andico]

What I see is that stepper motor mounts are inherently quieter than servo drive mounts. All of the Skywatcher mounts are stepper motor driven, for example.

My servo-driven Mach1 is like a dentist drill when slewing…

[Ratlet]

Can confirm that the gem28 is really quiet slewing or guiding.  I make more noise walking on the gravel path.

That being said I once ran up the house and used the WiFi to set the coffee grinder on the azgti to slew and it was hardly audible.  Load when you are beside it though.

The thing to consider is you're probably not going to be slewing a lot or often assuming you get the goto work.  I don't get on with goto, but I love the tracking.