What mount is this?

[Doley68]

Hello all.

This mount came with an old 8.5'' newt that I have now refurbished. The OTA is about 11.5 kgs & I am not sure if the mount in man enough for the job or not.

Can anybody tell what mount this is. It has no makers marks. It is at least 20 years old.

If it is a little to lightweight, which mount should I buy?

Thanks all!

[Merlin66]

Looks like an early Vixen type?

Should be as capable as the current EQ5, around 10-12Kg capacity.

An upgrade would be a HEQ5 ( with SynTrek drives - later add the GOTO) this is good to 15Kg. The next step up would be the 20Kg capacity NEQ6.

[John]

It's an Orion (USA) Skyview Deluxe or at least a clone of it. It's sort of equivilent to an EQ3-2 in the Skywatcher range.

John

[step_hen]

Also known as the Stellarvue M4 and the GSO Skyview. I have one for my newt. Rated to around 10kg IIRC. I've also seen it described as an EQ4!

[TheThing]

It's the spit of the Soligor EQ3-2 mount as well.

[Ant]

Looks closer to an EQ2 than an EQ3 to me.

[Astro_Baby]

Looks like a kind of split EQ2 / EQ3-2 - the top (where the vixen dovetail is) looks more EQ2 as does the latitude adjustement. The rest looks very EQ3-2.

[Brass n glass]

I'm pretty sure it was made about between 10 and 20 years ago by GSO (Guan Sheng Optical - is that enywhere near the right spelling?) of Taiwan and sold under all sorts of brand names. They used to be sold with 90mm refractors before Skywatcher arrived in force. At one time the mounts were sold in the UK by Orion Optics - Hugh

[step_hen]

This mount may be up to 20 years old but its still being sold new by teleskop service in Germany!

GSO Equatorial Mount Skyview w/ tripod - up to 8kgs load - Teleskop-Express: DER Astroshop + Fotografie + Naturbeobachtung