Ok..since some people brought up about this mount, please take note of these before you even consider buying this mount. Actually there are a few people who have this mount, I am surprised they never say anything
Good news
1) The azimuth post can be shifted to the area between the two back legs. All you have to do is to unscrew it from the north leg position and then screw it back behind between the legs. Finally a tripod that is friendly for equatorial countries.
2) Vixen counterweights can be used on this mount. You can use back your old CG5/Vixen counterweights. In fact, you have to use back those because the stock counterweights will definitely clash with the two back legs. (North leg, no need to say, it will clash regardless what counterweights). But if you intend to get a half pier, ignore this point.
3) The mount is very smooth on both axis. Pretty good mechanical fit and finish. All gears are bronze.
4) The tripod is a beast. 2" tubular compared to 1.5" on the LXD 75. But it's very very stable. If you have a small scope (say up to 5 inch Mak) the tripod doesn't feel like toppling even if you set the mount to face the two back legs.
5) I find the Nexstar controller easier to use than the Autostar. More intuitive. Maybe because it has lesser functions. The keys has better feel when you press it. Also, I never got an alignment unsuccessful. With the Autostar, I had a few times alignment unsuccessful even when i tested the alignment indoors and just accept wherever it points to!
6) RA index mark are spot on. The DEC index marks need some working.
Bad News
1) The mounthead can't go down till 0 degrees! The best I could do is maybe up to 10 degrees. Arief manage to mod it in some way to get it to 2 degrees. I knew how he do it, but I still don't understand how is that possible. Anyway, you can compensate this by raising the legs on one side so that the mounthead look flat ( 0 degrees). Need a bubble rule for this. The tripod remains stable even if the legs are imbalanced, as long you use a small scope. If you use a big scope, well, I think you need to put weights on the legs so that the mount doesn't topple.
2) The worst news is this : The housing of the RA motors are designed in a very unfriendly manner for maintenance and repair. It takes a lot of effort to open that up and put it back. And to make it even worse, the motors PCB board is inside this housing. If you open it, things will just spill out and you need to be very careful when you put it back. The PCB has an insulator tape behind and this comes off easily. THIS TAPE MUST BE PUT IN PLACE. So be very careful when you put the things back together. Just pray that you do not ever need to open this housing. Good thing is, you probably never need to because of the superior fit and finish.
The LXD 75 doesn't have this two bad points though. If you just want to check your motors and maybe to tighten the worm gears, you can just remove the RA housing easily. Heck, there is even a side window for you to watch the motors. For maintenance and repair, I give LXD75 two thumbs up. But then LXD55/75 has slipping and meshing gears problem though.
3) You need an external battery. LXD75 has a battery holder for you and you can just put in some D size bateries I think
4) You need three stars to do alignment. If you cannot find three stars (obstructed or block by clouds), you will be pretty much in trouble. Two stars can be done through quick alignment, but it might not be accurate.
I have not tested the GOTO yet, so can't comment on that.
Overall, if you can stomach the "cannot reach 0 degrees problem" and the poorly designed RA housing, this is a very good mount. Most importantly very very stable.
Some facts before you buy the Celestron Advanced CG5 GOTO
Regarding not being able to reach 0 degrees, I have found that it is possible, IFF you are willing to mess with the RA housing or the polar alignment screws. The housing interferes with the 2 large polar alignment screws Before I had read this post, I had already opened up the housing (with everything spilling out), and noted that without the housing, the mount can be pushed down to zero. Therefore, in order to solve this, I could come up with 3 other ideas (besides tipping the tripod forward as VinSnr suggests).
1) Keep the RA housing off ! Haha, not really advised since the PCB and gears are all exposed and dangling all over the place. If only someone could create a better housing 'cos this one is just too big and chunky, and a much smaller one could be easily designed.
2) Cut off some plastic from the RA housing so that the knobs from the polar alignment screws will not crash with the housing. You'll have 2 holes in the RA housing, but it shouldn't hurt much ?
3) Replace the screws with similar ones, but with either longer shafts or smaller heads. Haven't tried looking for these yet, but I would think I should be able to find some.
Anyone else has other ideas ? I somehow am not really happy with tipping the tripod forward as it does feel a bit unstable, and I'm not inclined to carry more weight to weigh down the back leg (lugging enough around already) so I'm still looking for alternatives.
:newbie:
1) Keep the RA housing off ! Haha, not really advised since the PCB and gears are all exposed and dangling all over the place. If only someone could create a better housing 'cos this one is just too big and chunky, and a much smaller one could be easily designed.
2) Cut off some plastic from the RA housing so that the knobs from the polar alignment screws will not crash with the housing. You'll have 2 holes in the RA housing, but it shouldn't hurt much ?
3) Replace the screws with similar ones, but with either longer shafts or smaller heads. Haven't tried looking for these yet, but I would think I should be able to find some.
Anyone else has other ideas ? I somehow am not really happy with tipping the tripod forward as it does feel a bit unstable, and I'm not inclined to carry more weight to weigh down the back leg (lugging enough around already) so I'm still looking for alternatives.
:newbie:
Celestron 9.25SGT, Meade ETX125, Orion ED80
Here's what I did:
1. Open up the RA housing, pushed down the mount to the lowest latitude. The lowest latitude somehow doesn't reach 0 degree, it stops at around 2 degrees. Btw, Singapore is 1.3 degrees, right?
2. Replace the polar alignment screws with smaller knobs
3. Put back the RA housing, you may need to slightly bend the plastic as the position of the housing is slightly higher than the original position. I really hope they can come up with a smaller housing, there's not much components inside the housing actually.
5. raise one or two legs VERY slightly to compensate for the 0.7 degree latitude difference if you really want to do accurate tracking. For visual use, 2 degree doesn't make much difference (I'm using widefield eps, btw).
6. GOTO doesn't really require accurate polar alignment as long as you do three star alignment accurately first. Some ppl on yahoogroups purposely shift their polar alignment as much as 10 degrees from polaris before doing three star aligment, yet they can still get accurate GOTO performance.
Arief
1. Open up the RA housing, pushed down the mount to the lowest latitude. The lowest latitude somehow doesn't reach 0 degree, it stops at around 2 degrees. Btw, Singapore is 1.3 degrees, right?
2. Replace the polar alignment screws with smaller knobs
3. Put back the RA housing, you may need to slightly bend the plastic as the position of the housing is slightly higher than the original position. I really hope they can come up with a smaller housing, there's not much components inside the housing actually.
5. raise one or two legs VERY slightly to compensate for the 0.7 degree latitude difference if you really want to do accurate tracking. For visual use, 2 degree doesn't make much difference (I'm using widefield eps, btw).
6. GOTO doesn't really require accurate polar alignment as long as you do three star alignment accurately first. Some ppl on yahoogroups purposely shift their polar alignment as much as 10 degrees from polaris before doing three star aligment, yet they can still get accurate GOTO performance.
Arief
I think the best alternative is (3). If you manage to find some, please let us know.kohjb wrote:Regarding not being able to reach 0 degrees, I have found that it is possible, IFF you are willing to mess with the RA housing or the polar alignment screws. The housing interferes with the 2 large polar alignment screws Before I had read this post, I had already opened up the housing (with everything spilling out), and noted that without the housing, the mount can be pushed down to zero. Therefore, in order to solve this, I could come up with 3 other ideas (besides tipping the tripod forward as VinSnr suggests).
1) Keep the RA housing off ! Haha, not really advised since the PCB and gears are all exposed and dangling all over the place. If only someone could create a better housing 'cos this one is just too big and chunky, and a much smaller one could be easily designed.
2) Cut off some plastic from the RA housing so that the knobs from the polar alignment screws will not crash with the housing. You'll have 2 holes in the RA housing, but it shouldn't hurt much ?
3) Replace the screws with similar ones, but with either longer shafts or smaller heads. Haven't tried looking for these yet, but I would think I should be able to find some.
Anyone else has other ideas ? I somehow am not really happy with tipping the tripod forward as it does feel a bit unstable, and I'm not inclined to carry more weight to weigh down the back leg (lugging enough around already) so I'm still looking for alternatives.
:newbie:
For your C9.25, I don't think tipping the leg forward is a good idea. The scope and counterweight is too heavy for that. But for smaller scopes, it shouldn't be a problem.
Arief, if you do this and push the housing to a "higher" position, how can you possibly put back the bottom housing screw? That screw ties the two halves and the mount together.ariefm71 wrote:Here's what I did:
1. Open up the RA housing, pushed down the mount to the lowest latitude. The lowest latitude somehow doesn't reach 0 degree, it stops at around 2 degrees. Btw, Singapore is 1.3 degrees, right?
2. Replace the polar alignment screws with smaller knobs
3. Put back the RA housing, you may need to slightly bend the plastic as the position of the housing is slightly higher than the original position. I really hope they can come up with a smaller housing, there's not much components inside the housing actually.
5. raise one or two legs VERY slightly to compensate for the 0.7 degree latitude difference if you really want to do accurate tracking. For visual use, 2 degree doesn't make much difference (I'm using widefield eps, btw).
6. GOTO doesn't really require accurate polar alignment as long as you do three star alignment accurately first. Some ppl on yahoogroups purposely shift their polar alignment as much as 10 degrees from polaris before doing three star aligment, yet they can still get accurate GOTO performance.
Arief
I've actually managed to find some screws that can work !! You can buy them at any HomeFix store. They are called furniture screws (actually they're bolts) and have different lengths. You can get the ones that says 6mm x 70mm on the pack. Comes 4 in a pack for S$2.80. They also have 6mm x 90mm and 100mm for those who would like it a little longer. They are like the screws (bolts) from Ikea and can be turned with an allen key.VinSnr wrote:I think the best alternative is (3). If you manage to find some, please let us know.kohjb wrote:
3) Replace the screws with similar ones, but with either longer shafts or smaller heads. Haven't tried looking for these yet, but I would think I should be able to find some.
The only disadvantage is that there isn't a knob. Options to overcome this are :
1) Turn manually as is (may need non-slip fingers
- make sure to loosen the central rod) 2) Buy a proper knob (dunno from where) or improvise one (super glue a dollar coin - nice knurled edge
:o ) 3) Use an allen wrench - could also permanently super glue this on the end of the screw, if you have lots lying around from making Ikea furniture.
Cheers !
Celestron 9.25SGT, Meade ETX125, Orion ED80