The equatorial mount is the mount where the so called reference plane is in the equatorial plane.
Basically this means that one takes the Alt-Az mount, and put it on a wedge so that the azimuth axis is no longer level to ground. Instead the Azimuth is tilted to become level with the equatorial plane. At this plane the angle of the azimuth axis is the same as latitude of the observer, and the axis can be pointed straight along the earth rotational/polar axis.
To make things complicated we call this the Right Ascension, RA, axis. It is indexed in hours, minutes and seconds.
The other axis, that we before called the Altitude is now called the Declination, Dec, axis. This is indexed in degrees, arc-minutes(1/60 degrees, ' ) and
arc-seconds(1/3600 degrees, " ).
Now, to track any object on the sky one simply have to turn the RA and Dec axis to point to a target, and then turn ONLY the RA axis with the same speed as the earth rotates.
The equatorial mount is, as one can understand, very appealing for amateur astronomers since it makes tracking objects very simple. At least in theory. A phenomena called "field rotation" is also cancelled and the framing of the object will stay unchanged even during hours of exposures.
Check out my Equatorial mounts:
New Kit!! Dec 2019
The so far biggest equipment upgrade!
After a while with mediocre guiding that I have problem to deal with, I have finally got around to do an upgrade. Several contestants were looked at:
I have some experience with both Skywatcher mounts (Star Adventurer and EQM-35) and with Celestron (CGEM).
Though the Skywacher do very good mounts in my humble experience, I have such good feel for the nexStar hand control and system which is just excellent in my opinion.
I have no experience with iOptron, but the CEM system looks very good and stabile, and seems like a good design solution.
Price is a factor, but for a component that means so much to the system I feel that I’m not going to go short this time.
- No more 2:nd hand stuff. No more “I upgrade later” ideas.
I know what I want, and I hope(!) that it will be worth it.
I went for the CGX mount. A heavy-duty mount with a few years since first release, giving it quite a bit of time to iron out the major birth defects and quirks that follows a new product.
The belt drive is a major factor in the decision, though the Skywatcher EQ6-R also has this design, but iOptron didn’t.
The NexStar+ remote is also a contributing factor.
I have high expectations on this mount and I will put it to the test to see if it will provide the stabile guiding and good performance I hope. You should never go out with too much expectations, but when you buy equipment for the price these come for, I think you are entitled to demand performance thereafter.
I know exactly where my CGEM fell short and I will compare its performance with the CGX at next opportunity.
I’m very excited, but also a little nervous. Will it be worth it?
NEW UPDATE!
Things did not work out as planned.
I hoped it was going to be a quick set up. A plug and play routine from my CGEM experience.
It wasn’t.
You can watch the whole thing at astroboden YouTube channel for some more details on the issues I encountered. The videos I made was shared with Celestrons technical support and the conclusion was to send the mount back for service.
The current status is that I’m waiting on the mount to be returned from the supplier who could do the service.
Too be continued…