I bought the Exos-2GT based on the weight of the mount and less concerned about the price. I wasn't sure which of the lighter mounts would handle the weight and length of the AR152. Since Exos-2GT is the mount ES packages with the AR152, I decided to give it a try.
Indeed the mount is easy to move from my garage, taking two trips, the mount and then the ota. It is easy to polar align (I don't have a polar finder). I have had no weight issues, but I would consider th2 152 with 2" eps at the limit for visual. I cannot comment on it's ap abilities.
As Mark experienced above, about 1/3 of the time the only alignment star offered was Altair. It is in the west. I cannot see the west due to large oaks on my property. I spent 4/1/2 weeks and 50+ hours trying to get all the problems resolved. During that time, I had only a handful of alignment stars to the east.
From the day I received the mount, I had problems. ES changed out the handbox, without any improvement, but then changed the ra motor. This did have a positive effect, to some degree. The ota no longer slewed to zenith, or straight down. Even after the ra motor was changed, it continued to slew all over. Since it continually gave me alignment stars in the western sky, I tried slewing to targets, and syncing. This didn't work either.
To make a long story shorter, it was finally getting within a reasonable distance of the alignment star (though not within my 9x50 finder scope view. I switched to a red dot.) But then the motors would act up. When hand slewing the dec motor would jump back and forth. Sometimes the ra motor would work, sometimes not. A final software reset last night seemed to fix the last issues, the motors. Finally I could slew to center an alignment star, and then have the scope put a subsequent target in my 32mm eyepiece.
ES was very important in getting this resolved with the replacement motor and handset. Once I hit a month of ownership, I haven't had any response from either ES or the dealer I bought it from. With the problems resolved at least for the time being, I wonder how long term support will be. I do not consider this to be the fault of ES USA, but poor quality control from Bresser. I hope Jerry is right that some of his work will trickle down to this model, but I'm not holding my breath for additional software updates. It appears Bresser has moved on to support other platforms.
The pros
The mount is a reasonable weight to move short distances,
can handle a long refractor ota, such as the AR-152, especially at this price point,
initial response from ES was good
motors are quiet.
The cons:
The handbox will most likely be supplied with depleted battery that creates it's own set of problems.
Often only one alignment star is offered for alignment,
In other instances,the alignment star offered are close to each other, such as Vega and Deneb. I can't see either.
severe software issues, requiring frequent software resets
even at it's best, slews to the alignment stars are not very accurate.
The software doesn't allow me to input the local lat/long. There is a place to do it, it just won't let me save the info. Instead, I have to use Atlanta Ga, about 150 miles away. (about 2° long, 1.2° lat)
The current level of support is most likely the best it will be, and don't expect any software upgrades.
To be fair, there are other reports about how well this mount performs. However if you get a bad mount, be prepared to spend a great deal of time working out the gremlins. ES' only option for software issues is to replace the handbox. And my dealer has been non-responsive about returning this mount for another, more expensive (and slightly larger) mount. In spite of getting the problems worked out last night (I hope), I would not recommend this mount.
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