Orion EQ-3M Single Axis Drive

Hi All. Contemplating geting an Orion EQ-3M single axis drive for my Orion Astroview 120 refractor mount. Anyone have experience with this? Does it track accurately? How long do the batteries last?, etc.

Thanks for your help.

Brian

Hi All. Contemplating geting an >>>Orion EQ-3M single axis drive for my Orion Astroview 120 refractor mount. Anyone have experience with this? Does it track accurately? How long do the batteries last?, etc.

Thanks for your help.

Brian
====

Brian: I have the dual axis drives for the Astroview mount, they are quite similar and both use 4 D cells for power. The money is definitely worth spending.

For visual use, the drive tracks very well, depending, as Bob said, on how accurately the scope is aligned. The slewing works but is quite slow and it can be a bit frustrating for that reason. The single drive is all that is necessary, doing the Dec manually is fine.

The batteries last until I think it is time to replace them which is generally quite a few nights, like maybe 20 hours or more. When I replace them I generally find they did not need replacing. :-)

Keep an eye out here on AM, these come quite often...

Jon