Posts Made By: Thomas Picciani

I've been using a G11 with Gemini 1 for roughly 8 years. Last year I upgraded to the Gemini 2. I also have seen countless CGEM's and CGE's.
I think the quality of the Losmandy gear is somewhat superior to the Celestron stuff. Not sure about recent manufacture but the older CGE's tended to have substantial play in the gears that is not evident in the G11's.
Out of the box, my G11 purchased in 2006 had a PE of around 14 arc seconds as measured by Pempro. Most errors were easily guided out but there was the occasional spurrious error that caused a random severe correction.
I upgraded in 2009 to the Ovision worm. The PE is now 2 arc seconds or leass peak to peak. I tested it last year in August and it still shows excellent performance.
The new Gemini 2 seems to be fairly easy to understand. The compatiblity with software seems to be OK now and the bugs are pretty much gone from what I've seen.
I run a C 9.25 on it with separate CFW, Optec focuser, and Pyxis Rotator on it. I have it on a side by side mount with a Short Tube 80 from Stellarvue.
G11 has no problem tracking or guiding.
I would recommend disassembling the mount and regreasing with Superlube if you can find it. I recently repacked the roller and thrust bearings and the performance seems even better than before.

Tom Picciani.

having mounted a 10 inch newt onto an even larger mount, I can tell you that moment arm is a big issue. Any wind will pick up that sail area of the tube and just shake it beyond acceptable levels. And I was using a huge William Optics GT1-HD that could hold 100 lbs!

If you're doing this for only visual work, I'd say the mount would be acceptable. If you plan to image, you're walking into a nightmare with this mount.

I personally will never buy another Celestron mechanical product. The parts and quality are getting cheaper every year. You're really getting what you pay for. Celestron has not learned that amateur astronomers are not looking for toys with plastic gears and cheap cast aluminum parts.

The G11 IS the only way to go whether you want to continue to use a long tube or move to an SCT or RC tube assembly. It's the most cost effective quality mount available. I know it's $3500 but you should be able to find a used one for much less. Then you can upgrade it to Gemini 2 when you can afford it.

Do this right the first time. That's my honest opinion.

Tom Picciani.