MI-250 and Titan

I've asked this question of a few Astromart members via private messages, but I'm hoping this forum post will help me gather more information.

I'm getting ready to upgrade mounts and am wondering what people's experiences are with the Mountain Instruments MI-250 and the Losmandy Titan. I think either would satisfy my needs but would like to hear owners sing the praises of the mounts. Or curse them, if appropriate.

John MacDonough said:

I've asked this question of a few Astromart members via private messages, but I'm hoping this forum post will help me gather more information.

I'm getting ready to upgrade mounts and am wondering what people's experiences are with the Mountain Instruments MI-250 and the Losmandy Titan. I think either would satisfy my needs but would like to hear owners sing the praises of the mounts. Or curse them, if appropriate.

I don't specifically own either but I have had the opportunity to play with both and I own a GM200 which is the tangent dec drive predecessor to the Titan. Neither made me want to sell off the GM200 and "upgrade". What I will say is both are fine mounts as long as the equipment load you will be using isn't much over 100 lbs. I might add I have no experience with the Mountain Instruments support structure but I have had to deal with Losmandy for support a couple of times and think HIGHLY of them based on that alone. If my memory serves me the MI-250 may require swapping some parts out depending on where it was setup up for originally and where you live latitude wise as they have limited adjustability in that respect. Assuming my memory isn't faulty, if for no other reason I would lean towards the Titan which offers full adjustability in that regard.

Thank you, Greg and Floyd, for the information. Good points, all. I hope more people will chime in, though. There doesn't seem to be much users' information about either mount out there. I guess I could understand that about the MI-250, but the Titan is a current product.

I have the Losmandy Titan 50 and love it! I've not used an MI-250 so I cannot compare....

Whew! I spent four years and nine months "getting ready", but I finally upgraded.  I saw an MI-250 for sale and jumped.  I bought it in September 2019, and installed it about a month later in October.  It took me a while to figure out how to adapt my concrete pier to MI-250, figure out contingency plans in case Plan A failed, and get mounting plates cut and drilled.

The MI-250 is a pretty big step up from the G-11 I was using.  I took the mount almost completely apart for cleaning and regreasing.  I did not disturb the mount for the worms: they looked like they were set carefully and precisely to ensure the worms are tangent to the worm wheels and I don't have the instruments necessary to repeat that.  Everything else went well, though.

The MI-250 moves with silky smoothness.  I had to spend much more time precisely balancing everything to get it stable when the clutches are disengaged.  It has much less static friction than my G-11 does.  I even had a ask a friend to make me a counter weight to balance my finder scope.

For visual observing, Gemini II is a pain in the butt.  I took the Gemini I included with the MI-250 and put it on the G-11 I am keeping as my travel mount.  The Gemini II I had on that G-11 is now on my MI-250, permanently mounted in my observatory.  At least I won't have to build pointing models with Gemini II often.

As Greg Schaffer recommended in a previous post, I've got far less than 100 pounds on my mount.  The sixty or so pounds I have (plus equal counter weights) was a strain for my G-11, but my MI-250 doesn't seem to mind at all.  Slew speeds are 65% faster.  Tracking is plenty good enough for visual, of course.  The scope I have in my observatory is no beginner's astrophotography scope (5250mm focal length), so it will be a while before I know if it's a good mount for imaging.  

My only gripe about the MI-250 is the adjustments for altitude and azimuth are poor, making polar alignment frustrating.  Oh, and the bubble level is off...

Well that took a while to happen lol

Congrats on finally making the move.....Still using my GM200 and enjoying it here....

Installation day (odd, the photo is right-way-'round on my computer...):

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