Page 1 of 1

iOptron SmartEQ

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 12:11 am
by yltansg
Bought the SmartEQ mount for solar imaging. It came in one box.

Image

It consists of mount head, tripod (resonably solid) and a controller.

Image

It is light and highly portable. Can be operated using 8 AA size batteries.

Setup is straight forward.

Image

Two things to note -

1. Like the iOptron iEQ45, the counter weight will hit the tripod leg. I fabricated a smaller signature counter weight to overcome this problem.

2. It does not have autoguiding capability and you would need to do a good polar alignment to have good tracking. It works ok for my Borg 76mm scope for solar imaging. Will be trying it for wide filed imaging using the SV70 ED with Canon 450D.

Re: iOptron SmartEQ

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:05 am
by Gary
Good stuff! Thanks for the info and sharing!

Re: iOptron SmartEQ

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 7:36 pm
by roma_my
Look a lots of string you're using for your signature counter weight. Lol.

Re: iOptron SmartEQ

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 11:25 pm
by yltansg
Hi Roland,

I was too lazy to remove the string :) Here is a close-up of an improvised CW made of few pieces of mild steel glued together. Doesn't look great but does the job :)

Image

Re: iOptron SmartEQ

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 11:51 pm
by cataclysm
The mount looks very light weight. Good improvisation with the counterweight! :P

Re: iOptron SmartEQ

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2012 12:58 am
by Airconvent
Looks very sturdy ad heavy too! :)