Telescope Mounts

Is an EQ6 mount better than a CG5 or not as the case may be.

The EQ6 is better than the CG5 IMHO. It has a greater load carrying capacity 18kg versus 10 kg.

Usually the cost of the EQ6 includes the Polar alignment scope which is an extra over cost for the CG5, though this degree of alignment is only necessary for astrophotography.

The drawbacks of the EQ6 are it is substantially heavier than the CG5 ( the mount head alone weighs in at 18 kg), this puts it on the limit of portability for a lot of people. Also a while ago the goto hand controller was not available in Europe, though this should be resolved by now.

I would have prefered the EQ6 Goto but the additional costs ( €300) made me opt for the CG5-ASGT, which I a very satisfied with.

Joanna - I really don't have any direct knowledge or hands-on experience of either mount and couldn't really compare them for you.

However, the larger payload capacity of the EQ6 and the physical weight of it would tend to favour it over the CG5 in terms of stability. That would be important if you wanted to do astrophotography.

The poalr scope is not important for astrophotography unless you want a portable system or you are taking short exposure that don't require precise polar alignment. For astrophotography, you will drift align.

Hope this helps...

Dave

Both the HEQ5 and the EQ6 have far less periodic error than the CG5 goto mount.

The HEQ5 is about as portable as the CG5-ASGT as far as I am aware. A bit more expensive than the CG5 but less than the EQ6.

The ASGT is great but for photography the HEQ5 and EQ6 are supposed to be better out of the box.

Also, the EQ6 has periodic error control (PEC) to reduce tracking errors considerably after training the mount.

Trev

Hi Joanna, it's the EQ6 for me, I have the cg5, and for visual it's absolutely fine, once your finderscope is properly aligned, the goto function is super, it always has put any object I wanted to view in the low power eyepiece, the hand control is great too, but remember - you need a power supply also, be it from the mains, or a 'powertank'
www.scsastro.co.uk/it030013.htm

This is 7Amp powertank, but you can also get a 17Amp tank for more power!

As for photography, I've had no joy, it's error in tracking any star is just too much, the stars turn out as streaks
:roll:

If you have the cash, go for the EQ6 for photography, but the CG5 for visual

Keith..

Joanna,

You need to keep in mind that the best price I can find for the EQ6 is €1398 whereas the CG5 costs €975. Or put another way the EQ6 costs 143% of the CG5, so you would expect it to be significantly better. So does it warrant the price tag? I think it does. Ian King (Ian King Imaging) has a short review on it here;

www.iankingimaging.com/show_article.php?id=12

Ian is a trustowrthy guy. If he says it's the biz then I beleive him.

So the question is, would you're budget stretch that far? If so I'd say go for it.