Ioptron ZEQ25GT mount?

[orly_andico]

beginner, you know very well that my experience with the China stuff has been less than stellar.



in reality i think i will skip the small mount thing and just carry out my 30-pounder. you seem to be able to drag yours to sedili fairly often..

[anat]

Mine is on the way

[beginner]

Bring a heavy mount to darker sky and using it the whole nite justify the burden.
But if using it in Spore for short imaging or for observing, heavier setup not worth the effort.

A lighter setup "grab and go" kind is more useful.
What exciting is this small mount also has goto feature and can interface with astro software for pointing.
And don't need a half pier.

Only not sure the slewing is accurate or not yet.

[orly_andico]

beginner, wouldn't the ZEQ25 be overloaded with your non-baby?

[beginner]

Orly,

They stipulated payload 12.3kg.
If that is true then it can carry a light weight APM 130mm APO.
Up to 115mm APO, most brand will be within that weight limit.
Camera weight is less than 2 kg
Guess with that size of scope, there is enough DSO to keep anyone busy for many years.

Unfortunately maker spec sometime cannot be trusted.
So need to seriously test this baby.

[orly_andico]

Do you believe iOptron claim that iEQ45 can carry 45lb? same as Mach1?

[PETER LOO]

Hi Orly, My opinion on the ZEQ-25 is a very good value for money mount for APer. Good PE figure, portable & innovative design, but Motor drive i still prefer the Vixen MT-1 type as the later is super reliable, stable and reasonably accurate.
For lighter weight good mount, i think the EM-10 is much preferred. Orly do you have any idea who owns one of it here & what's the usual re-sale price of this ? I am thinking of selling off my Vixen GPD2 + Starbook-S and get this mount, after all, i am quite use to manual Setting Circle (had used a EQ3-2 mount to shoot M-31, M-33, M-101 etc - so not nice shots, of course) Best regards.

[orly_andico]

Peter, I know of no local EM-10/11 owners.

The problem with these mounts is that they cannot crank down to 1 degree latitude, you'd need a pier.

[PETER LOO]

Noted with thanks Orly, had just checked with OPT on new, the price tag on EM-11 is still quite high, a bit out of reach, no choice, but to stick to present set up for a little while more ..

[MooEy]

Orly: there's at least 1x em-10 locally...

Loo: GP-D2 is a pretty nice mount, just go look for a set of SS2K

~MooEy~