Telescope Reviews: AP-1200 or Tak EM-500

I'm pretty much a Tak fan (see sig.). I put a lot of thought into mounts over the last few years. The one determining factor for me in selecting a mount was imaging across the Meridian. While normally it is assumed this means starting the session with the mount "looking" East and tracking West with the scopes hitting the pier after passing Meridian. The AP mounts will let you setup with the mount "looking" West and backup over the Meridian to image through it. Something you can't do with hard stops. And the AP mounts let you do it using GOTO by setting a simple keypad parameter. With this you can track 2 hours through the thinnest part of the atmosphere. Very important in poor seeing areas.

If you forget what planet you are on and let the AP track into the pier the clutches slip and nothing gets hurt (in my experience forgetting 5 or so times). Hasn't hurt the mount or the equipment. The knobs on the clutches are designed to hurt your fingers before you can tighten enough to hurt the mount or equipment.

How does the AP-1200 compare to the NJP after using both for a couple years? These are the important points to me:

NJP positives:
1. Tracks perfectly
2. Capacity is underrated
3. Perfect polar scope. Still best to drift align for long exposures.

NJP negatives:
1. No handbox and GOTO
2. Threaded rod counterweight system yucky and CWs rust
3. Slews slower than a big tax refund. You have to see it to believe.
4. Tak 24v power supply designed with significant safety exposure (bare 110v wires).
5. Never autoguide with the slewing switch in "turtle" position. (The mount switch box has two slewing speeds, turtle and dead.) Start autoguiding in turtle and you lose the object alignment as the mount runs away. You must autoguide in "dead" switch position (x1 sidereal). With no GOTO to reacquire the object this really stinks.
6. Price. The build quality is up there but the automation is non-existent. Yes, you can compensate with "theSky6" and computer. No comparison to the extra features and GOTO built in to the well thought out AP hand controller.

AP-1200 positives:
1. Tracks perfectly
2. Capacity is underrated
3. Good polar scope. Still best to drift align for long exposures. If you are seriously playing in this league, optical alignment won't cut it for either mount.
4. Awesome GOTO with almost no setup after it is aligned. Find a star, hit sync and let her rip. When it doesn't work perfectly look in the manual where Roland tells you why (orthogonal mismatch).
5. Everything works with it. Plates, software, OEM CWs, etc.
6. Serious solid and well thought out construction by people that really care about Astronomy. That company is in the game for Astronomy and the customer. One of the few not in it with profit as the primary motivation. Most any product they make can be sold for more than you paid for it the day after you get it. Hello.... expensive, yet cheap and under priced for what you get.
7. Most of all, I never notice the mount anymore. It knows more about what I need than I do, does it and gets out of the way.

AP-1200 Negatives:
1. Availability
2. Trying to think of more......

So yep, I love my Takahashi equipment. Those scopes are awesome and the NJP was fine. But the AP-1200 is, to me, in a different class.