orlyandico
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 08/10/09
Loc: Singapore
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Re: The future of mounts--any thoughts?
[Re: Peter Glus]
#4391670 - 02/16/11 10:49 PM
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pity harmonic gearboxes are eye-poppingly expensive (and monopolized by a single manufacturer).
i was thinking of doing some DIY experimentation but even surplus harmonic gearboxes cost an arm and a leg on ebay.
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BPO
sage
Reged: 02/23/10
Loc: South Island, NZ
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Re: The future of mounts--any thoughts?
[Re: orlyandico]
#4391835 - 02/17/11 12:53 AM
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After comparing current harmonic drive based mounts with the available direct drive models, the decision seemed easy to make.
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gdd
sage
Reged: 11/23/05
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Re: The future of mounts--any thoughts?
[Re: mistyridge]
#4392347 - 02/17/11 10:52 AM
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Will having to do polar alignment be a thing of the past? Will we see portable self aligning harmonic drive mounts
Currently even the self aligning mounts take their best shot at aligning and then rely on autoguiding to compensate for alignment errors. Will the future have continous aligning mounts, where the autoguider feeds senses drift and makes corrections to the polar alignment to reduce further drift? Will it also sense disagreement with the star maps and make on-the-fly modelling corrections?
Gale
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Chris Lyons
member
Reged: 12/28/09
Loc: Baltimore
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Re: The future of mounts--any thoughts?
[Re: BPO]
#4393039 - 02/17/11 04:52 PM
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Howdy BPO. Yep I know what you
mean about the choice!
Those Chronos mounts just look
awesome and the whole no CW and
no meridian flip thing is a real
selling point but there was no
way I could justify the price at
the time ( or now!! ) plus there
was a good reason to go with the
A.S.A. DDM aside from the direct
drive no PE deal -- the guys at
my company are direct drive and
PID demons so I knew there would
be immediate support! 
And the DDM looks very cool ( but
so does the Chronos!! Decisions! )
You know you have the right mount
when all your tracking problems
are solely caused by flexure in
the scope and rings!
With no guide scope and other junk
hanging off it things are simpler
and I get excellent unguided times.
The PE is non existent so that's
good. 
The only downsize if you like to
these new top line mounts is the
learning curve can be steep for
people who aren't used to it.
So I guess it comes down to how
seriously you take the hobby.
Chris
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Hikari
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 01/05/11
Loc: Maine, USA
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Re: The future of mounts--any thoughts?
[Re: Chris Lyons]
#4393262 - 02/17/11 06:47 PM
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One day they will make mounts that can do more than just go around in circles.
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frolinmod
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 08/06/10
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Re: The future of mounts--any thoughts?
[Re: Astrojensen]
#4394058 - 02/18/11 01:34 AM Attachment (84 downloads)
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Not if you want to do long-exposure photography with no field rotation, but I think there's a good chance that mounts will be developed that can do it themselves with very, VERY high accuracy. All it would take was some motors on the altitude and azimuth adjustments on a GEM, a CCD camera and a computer that could talk with the camera, the mount and the adjustment motors and then run an automated drift alignment procedure. Given the sensitivity of the CCD, it could probably be done in a few minutes.
This is already being done now except that one still has to manually turn the altitude and azimuth adjustment knobs on the mount in the direction and by the amount indicated by the software. How would you like four (4) arc-second RMS all sky pointing on your Paramount? It's called T-point. Mind you, it does take more than a few minutes to achieve this. It takes a few hours. But it's practically effortless as T-point and the mount do all the grunt work while you sip your hot chocolate and browse CN.
Edited by frolinmod (02/18/11 01:51 AM)
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Starhawk
Post Laureate
Reged: 09/16/08
Loc: Tucson, Arizona
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Re: The future of mounts--any thoughts?
[Re: frolinmod]
#4395091 - 02/18/11 02:36 PM
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Oh good, the CN troll didn't overlook the Mounts Forum!
-Rich
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JStanley
member
Reged: 03/07/10
Loc: Tacoma, WA
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Re: The future of mounts--any thoughts?
[Re: Chris Lyons]
#4396981 - 02/19/11 12:30 PM
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I own a Chronos HD32HPO Mount (250lbs max load) and I’m very happy with it. It’s very precise and I love no meridian flips or counter weights. Chronos now has a native driver for TheSkyX Pro that works very well. It has not crashed once during my detailed testing and provides seamless integration with TheSkyX Pro.
If I remember correctly, the entry level Chronos costs about the same and an entry level Software Bisque Paramount. So if you are considering buying a new High-End Mount you should give serious consideration to getting a Chronos Mount.
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Nasus
member
Reged: 11/26/07
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Re: The future of mounts--any thoughts?
[Re: JStanley]
#4397915 - 02/19/11 08:00 PM
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a) direct drives (mounts still expensive; ~10k$, but available)
b) integrated USB, wifi, bluetooth (getting rid of those adapters and obsolete parallel ports...plug&play instead of pray)
c) LiPo - way lighter and smaller than those 1900ish bulky leadboxes
d) portable and precise mounts for AP
ps.:
e) gems will still be around - but instead of counterweights we'll use another scope to gather more light.
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frolinmod
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 08/06/10
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Re: The future of mounts--any thoughts?
[Re: JStanley]
#4398154 - 02/19/11 09:58 PM
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I own a Chronos HD32HPO Mount (250lbs max load) and I’m very happy with it.
I for one would like to know more. If you haven't already, can you write a review?
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