Skywatcher EQ6 SKyScan Pro Mounting

Hi, Is this mount any good for unguided astrophotography? It's in the middle of the page.
www.iankingimaging.com/show_products.php...set=20&offset=10

As you may know, I have the celeston cg5 mount, but this is unsuitable for photography, I just want to know if any of you have used this mount, or can recommend a very good one? What about the vixen gpdx??

Thanks,
Keith..

It is supposed to be excellent Keith. PE is about 30 arc seconds before PEC and much lower afterwards (I think I heard somewhere in the region of 5-10 ?).

The CG5GT/ASGT is closer to 1 arcminute!

Sky at Night tested it and it came out miles ahead of the ASGT. The marks for tracking capability for the 4 reviewed mounts were.

Sphinx 96%
CG5GT 81%
HEQ5 94%
EQ6 91%

EQ6 is really really heavy though. You wouldn't want to be moving that around.

Have you tried autoguiding your asgt at all? I find autoguiding works quite well after a drift align.

Trev

keith as Trevor says, I would go giving up on the CG5 just yet. No mount in close to that price range will give satisfactory performance without guiding. Remember this, to a large degree it doesn't matter if the PEC is 10arcseconds or 10 arcminutes it still needs to be guided out. That said more expensive mounts can be PEC trained.

I haven't heard anything bad about the EQ6, quite the opposite actually. However I have no doubt that you would still need to guide. Therefore I wouldn't be rushing out to buy one until you've tried autoguiding the CG5. Givie it a go, I think you'll be surprised at just what you can do.

Keith,

In case you haven't seen it, Ian King has a very positive review of the EQ6 skyscan mount on his site

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

Ah, Thanks lads, I'll have a read and make up my mind, I have'nt autoguided at all yet, but I'll do the sums..

Thanks again,
Keith..