Telescope Mounts

i'm not looking for hubble quality images

Joanna, thats mistake number 1! If you want to take average images then thats fine. However, I don't see the point in limiting yourself from the outset. Shouldn't your aim be to take the absolute best images your, talents and budget will permit. All I'm saying is you should not start out with a defeatist attitude!

As Trevor rightly said, the review you read is of the old CG5 which was generally criticised particularly for its shaky tripod. I can assure you that the tripod on the new CG5 is exactly the same tripod which the EQ6 comes on and is several orders of magnitude better than the old one.

The thing which worries me about the lxd mounts is the constant references to people who have trouble with the electronics breaking down.

I also found another review of the meade lxd75 www.cloudynights.com/documents/lxd75.pdf which appears to be in favour of the mount.

Joanna, this reads more like an instruction manual to me, rather than a review. The guy hardly mentions tracking performance, he never mentions goto accuracy (as far as i could find) and he certainly makes no mention of this mounts capability for astrophotography. The close up photos of the tripod tell me straight away that the CG5's tripod is far superior.

I firmly beleive the CG5 is superior to the LXD series in almost every respect.

i'm not looking for hubble quality images

Joanna, thats mistake number 1! If you want to take average images then thats fine. However, I don't see the point in limiting yourself from the outset. Shouldn't your aim be to take the absolute best images your, talents and budget will permit. All I'm saying is you should not start out with a defeatist attitude!

I totally agree with Dave, DO NOT buy a half-way-house mount which you'll have to end up selling in a year or 2 and in the mean time will drive you mad, get the best mount you can afford/find.
For me when it comes to equipment, I always ask myself "will I have to upgrade this in a few years", if the answer is definitely yes, then I dont buy it, of course you dont always get it right :lol:

Joanna,
Just to make things even more confusing for you here's a link to a discussion on the CG5 and LDX mount on the Cloudy nights forum. One of these guys is getting some pretty amazing photos using a LDX75.


CG5-ST Versus LDX75