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Posts Made By: John Craig

June 14, 2013 02:55 AM Forum: Mounts

How hefty a mount for 10" RC

Posted By John Craig

I'm building a 10" Ritchey-Chretien scope (using wonderful Star Instruments optics) that I have almost got ready to put on a mount. What I'm wondering is, how reliable are the manufacturer's ratings of what a mount's load-capacity is? And are those values likely to be substantially different in terms of reliability from one manufacturer to another? Is there a minimum price-range I should be looking at?

OTA specs:
Weight w/o eyepiece ~20 lbs.
Tube is 12.4" diameter and 30" long
(not counting the eyepiece holder--so with a decent eyepiece, it'll be between 36 & 40" sky-end to exit-pupil).

I don't want to get something that will be jiggly (been there, done that), but I also don't want to get something that will be a real pain to move around (so I'm hoping to keep the weight of the mount/tripod low enough that I won't not use it because it's a beast to move around). I do not anticipate doing long exposure astrophotography or even spending the money to get the gear to do it. I'm mostly interesting in viewing and would like to get back into school outreach (which I enjoyed doing some of in my younger days).

As a concrete example, I've looked at the iOptron iEQ30 which is supposedly rated at 31 lbs capacity. Assuming there's a decent finder and perhaps (if I ever tried it) a piggy-back camera or moderate refractor on the thing, it would seem that ~30 lbs would be a reasonable amount of actual weight. So, is that mount really going to be hefty enough or should I be looking at the iEQ45 (rated at 45 lbs)? Another mount I've considered is the Celestron CGEM (which one place lists as having a 40 lb capacity--overkill or about right if the ratings are optimistic?). Interestingly enough the CGEM DX appears to be exactly the same mount on a heftier tripod and the same place says it's rated at 50 lbs. The lower-down-the-price-chain VX says it will take 30 lbs, but a review I found suggested that was optimistic and you'd be better off w/ half that.

So, suggestions, experiences, advice, tales of woe or joy--all most welcome!

John