Telescope Reviews: Just how good is an AP 1200 GTO

Yea, that helps a lot. I just helped a (new) friend install a 1200 for use with his Meade 14" and his FSQ. How odd. With this rig there aren't a lot of choices in mount. Sixty five feet isn't really "remote". If you were way out remote (miles) you might want to consider the Paramount due to it's reset and homing features, but since you're not...

Understand that I am biased to AP mounts. I've owned various AP mounts for years - I have a 1200/CP3 now. Is your install going to be permanent or will you be traveling? If the latter, one of the really nice features of the 1200 is how the DEC axis can be separated from the RA axis for transport/setup. It turns a very heavy mount into manageable pieces.

Imaging... well, most of previous posts already point out how scary smooth the 1200 PE is - which is critical for those really great images. One thing you don't hear a lot about - all software that I've ever encountered works with AP mounts right out of the box. I've never had any problems with software and my AP mounts. Never.

It just works... I often hear from others about how much less they spent on their mount, and I often watch those same folks struggle mightly with all sorts of issues. I've been using AP mounts for a little more than 9 years now. Not once have I ever had to do anything other than supply power to the mount. No firmware upgrades, no sending it back to the vendor for something else yet again, no "lost" mount issues, no nuttin. It's like an old diesel engine - it just works and never complains.

Support... Two months ago I'm out for New Moon weekend. I get there Thursday, setup and my hand controller keeps rebooting. I assume the internal battery is dead since I've had this mount about 5 years. I unplug the hand controller, use my laptop to initialize the mount and continue the rest of the evening without issue (do that with any other mount). The next morning (Friday) I call AP and get Christine on the phone. I don't know if that's easy to do with support at other vendors, but I've always been impressed with how I can call up AP at most any time of the day and get a real person who actually knows how the product works. She has a few theories but is quite certain that my power supply to the mount is not putting out enough voltage. She tells me the mount will work with much less than 12 volts, but the hand controller can get grumpy if it falls to 11.4 or less volts. Well, it's a new power supply so of course I think she's wrong (but I don't say that!). I get out my meter and check it. Good grief - 11.4 volts! I punted and got decent power to the mount and the rest of the weekend was salvaged. Simply put, AP support ROCKS.