Ah, well, I would totally disagree. For a 4" refractor these setting circles are MORE than sufficient. I worked for a decade with this setup and found it to be far more than satisfactory. When I was using them a lot, I could literally nail any target. To to this though, you need to be able to use the vernier scale. With the scale, it is possible to get EXTREMELY accurate pointing.

One of the reasons I like the Super Polaris over the GP is that the GP did in fact go to a ring that is rather small. The DEC ring is mounted near the top of the counterweight shaft, and the RA circle is mounted at the tail end of the RA housing. Neither of these rings is very big, and the graduations are rather fat.

The Super Polaris on the other hand has a DEC ring that is quite large and sits just below the mounting head.

The RA ring is above the RA housing and is also quite large.

I could easily and reliably hit within a degree or two of my target just about every time. More than close enough with a 4" scope, especially with todays super-widefield eyepieces.

I also was very successful with the GM8 manual circles.

The main reason I went to Digital circles so long ago was because for ANY setting circles to work well, accurate polar alignment is far more critical.

Still, if you are willing to do polar alignment, the circles on the Super Polaris are of excellent quality and if the OP has used setting circles previously, I think he will be very happy with the GM8 or Super Polaris.

But that is just my opinion. Having done it successfully myself though, I am very confident that either of these mounts will serve his well.

NOT so with a standard CG5 or a GP type mount. On these, the circles are smaller and not as finely indexted.

Super Polaris is a class act. In many ways, the GP and CG5 was a step backward. If your comments are based on exposure to these mounts, then I agree. I totally disagree as far as the SP and GM8 are concerned though.

Regards.