· Get a Cloudy Nights T-Shirt · Submit a Review / Article Click here if you are having trouble logging into the forums Privacy Policy | Please read our Terms of Service | Signup and Troubleshooting FAQ | Problems? PM a Red or a Green Gu… uh, User You are not logged in. [Login] Entrance · Main Index · Search · New user · Who's Online FAQ · Calendar Announcements and News >> Discussion of CN Articles, Reviews, and Reports Previous   Index   Next   Threaded   Pages: 1 | 2 | (show all) Olivier Biot Amused Reged: 04/25/05 Loc: 51°N (Belgium) What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount?       #4949784 - 12/04/11 03:03 PM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? By Greg Marshall. Post Extras:       Raginar Carpal Tunnel Reged: 10/19/10 Loc: Rapid CIty, SD Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: Olivier Biot]       #4950585 - 12/04/11 11:13 PM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Greg, Great article. My mount does it too. I wish there was a good solution to it. Post Extras:       stevecoe "Astronomical Tourist" Reged: 04/24/04 Loc: Arizona, USA Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: Raginar]       #4950862 - 12/05/11 06:11 AM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Greg; My CGEM worked just fine, but I a fortunate enough to live in Arizona so I have Starizona near by. When I bought it from Starizona, Dean Konig looked it all over then lubed and set the gear adjustment very carefully. I never had a cogging problem and once I got good with the polar alignment routine I got lots of great images and enjoyed my CGEM. After taking all the images I wanted to take, I was done with astrophotography and returned to just viewing. I have a simple tracking mount and I enjoy some wide field imaging, but I am happy that I returned to just looking at the sky. It is unfortunate that there is not one simple "fix it" for this problem. Clear skies to us all; Steve Coe Post Extras:       Greg K. Reged: 12/11/03 Loc: Clifton Park, NY Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: stevecoe]       #4951065 - 12/05/11 09:29 AM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Nice article. Tnakfully my CGEM does not exhibit this behavior when guiding - works great! Post Extras:       Goran Strand sage Reged: 03/05/08 Loc: Jamtland, Sweden Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: Greg K.]       #4952632 - 12/06/11 02:16 AM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Thanks for a great article. My mount acts exactly likes this. Now I've contacted my supplier and asked him to get in contact with Celestron about this. Post Extras:       airydisc member Reged: 01/23/07 Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: Goran Strand]       #4964031 - 12/13/11 03:20 AM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Thanks for the feedback. I recently heard that Celestron has released a firmware fix to address the problem. Have you heard about that? I stopped paying attention after upgrading to an AP Mach1GTO. I was asked whether a mount that does not exhibit the problem should be upgraded and I think the answer is "no" - at least until it has been proven to work reliably. I say that because I believe that the changes needed were extensive. Greg Post Extras:       highfnum Carpal Tunnel Reged: 09/06/06 Loc: NE USA Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: airydisc]       #4969115 - 12/16/11 07:11 AM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   when you said swapped moters did u get a new motor from celestron or just swap RA motor with dec motor? Post Extras:       boeingfan super member Reged: 08/28/08 Loc: El Dorado Hills. CA Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: airydisc]       #4976997 - 12/20/11 11:29 PM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Have you looked in to having it "hypertuned" ? http://www.deepspaceproducts.com/HyperTune-Service_8_4226.html Post Extras:       airydisc member Reged: 01/23/07 Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: highfnum]       #4981894 - 12/23/11 07:19 PM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   I swapped the RA and DEC motors. You can get a replacement motor (it's the same as the CG-5 motor), but there's no guarantee that the new one will be any better. Post Extras:       airydisc member Reged: 01/23/07 Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: boeingfan]       #4981902 - 12/23/11 07:24 PM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Yup. I talked to Ed at Deep Space Products. Once he understood the exact nature of the problem he said that a hypertune would not help. It would be different if he could find a suitable replacement motor, but so far that has not happened. Post Extras:       Ed J member Reged: 05/31/07 Loc: Tujunga, California Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: airydisc]       #4994135 - 12/31/11 01:40 PM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   I am a member of "TeamCelestron.com", just looked, but if new firmwere exists, I can't find it there. Anybody know of its existence? It has been on my back-burner since my third motor DEC solution ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/edhiker/6204459052/ ) Ed Johnson Post Extras:       FLYcrash Pooh-Bah Reged: 08/29/09 Loc: Chicago, IL, USA Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: Ed J]       #4996561 - 01/01/12 09:41 PM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Hi Greg, I'm no astrophotographer but still enjoyed reading your clear exploration of such a subtle issue. I wonder if one could source high-end servos satisfying the specs of the CGEM servos. Seems like upgrading to motors that consistently avoid cogging would save a lot of APers a lot of hassle. Post Extras:       svtdoug sage Reged: 02/07/11 Loc: Gig Harbor, WA, USA Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: FLYcrash]       #5011725 - 01/11/12 04:22 AM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Hi Greg, I enjoyed your fine review of the cogging problem. I have a "mild" case of this - in that my jumps are normally within +/- 1 pixel, but sometimes dec will wonder off 2 or 3 pixels. I upped the Guide rate on dec in the mount to 90% and upped the PHD's Min Motion to .40 - and both of these measured seemed to help - making the jumps less severe. And as you noted, upping PHD's Max Dec to 1800 or 2000. I believe it was Ed who has communicated with a firmware engineer at Celestron who acknowledged the problem and is supposed to be working on a fix. Would be nice - then it would be reasonably good mount. Thanks! Doug Post Extras:       airydisc member Reged: 01/23/07 Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: svtdoug]       #5022698 - 01/17/12 12:19 PM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Sorry for my slow response here! There have been serious efforts to find an alternative motor for the CGEM, but AFAIK, none has been found. Doug, yes, the degree of cogging will vary from one motor to another. I'm skeptical about improving the situation with adjusted guide parameters. Have you measured the long-term performance with and without the changes? Agreed, the CGEM would be a fine mount if they could solve this problem - or if you are lucky enough to get one with good motors. I've seen and tested some with good motors, but both of the units I owned had bad motors on the DEC axis. Greg Post Extras:       svtdoug sage Reged: 02/07/11 Loc: Gig Harbor, WA, USA Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: airydisc]       #5029774 - 01/21/12 01:18 AM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Hi Greg, Have not used the mount since - we've had lousy weather, so can't comment on long term performance. But it clearly dampened the dec excursions during the session when I made the adjustments. Several days ago, I did receive an email from Derik of Team Celestron regarding the cogging issue. He responded - "As for the DEC guiding problem, I am working on it as fast as I can. I hope to have some alpha code out next month." I've signed on for Beta testing, so hopefully we will see a fix in a month or two. Doug Post Extras:       DeMar newbie Reged: 03/02/11 Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: svtdoug]       #5044817 - 01/29/12 07:20 PM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   I have the same issue mentioned here and have found that by adjusting some of the guiding settings it'll perform better for a little longer but eventually it'll start to drift in DEC again. A difference between 5 and 10 minutes before drift occurs. I've resorted to sitting there and watching the readouts with the hand controller at the ready so that when I start to see a drift, I overcome it with manual input. Obviously only works with wide field photography. I'm hoping Celestron comes out with a fix soon or the mount will be replaced. Post Extras:       Jason B My wife says I am Obsessed... Reged: 06/21/04 Loc: Mid-Michigan Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: DeMar]       #5071645 - 02/14/12 07:34 AM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Nicely written article. My CGEM has been flawless since day one. The only time I have had any issues with guiding, it's been a balance issue on my part. Post Extras:       sabin_fota member Reged: 04/08/12 Loc: Romania Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: Jason B]       #5163041 - 04/09/12 01:56 AM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Great article Greg, I have the same problem with my CGEM. Hope I'm gonna fix it because I ordered the hypertune kit from deepspaceproducts.com Post Extras:       MichaelAK member Reged: 06/11/12 Loc: Las Vegas, NV (suburb) Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: sabin_fota]       #5347743 - 08/01/12 09:36 PM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Yes Greg, great article. I was thinking of buying the CGEM mount for astrophotgraphy for a load of no more than about 37 lbs. Greg or anyone, Any good alternatives? Also, short of buying one, how would we have any assurance that Celestron has fixed the problem or minimized it? Michael Post Extras:       gmartin02 sage Reged: 04/11/05 Loc: Santa Clarita, CA Re: What's Wrong with the Celestron CGEM Mount? [Re: MichaelAK]       #5412601 - 09/10/12 12:15 AM Edit   Reply   Quote Quick Reply   Celestron is working on the problem. They are on their 3rd beta release of the motor control firmware with a fix for the problem, but the beta releases are still unstable. They are also working on other updates for a new firmware release, such as improved backlash compensation. Post Extras:       Pages: 1 | 2 | (show all) Previous   Index   Next   Threaded   Extra information 1 registered and 1 anonymous users are browsing this forum. 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