My adult daughter and I have been delving back into an old hobby of mine, astronomy with the grandkids (10 & 12 yo) and we are planning the plunge into astroimaging. I have done a LOT of research and as a retired engineer I take a pretty hard nosed perspective. Our planned scope is Orion's 190mm f/5.3 Mak-Newt. Auto guiding will of course be part of the mix (PHD2). Despite being Mac aficionados, we will be getting a windoz laptop for the setup since there is a dearth of astronomy software on the mac side although we do plan to do all our post processing using tools on the Mac (yes, we know about and actually use Parallels, but for this, a dedicated windows laptop is our choice). The only mounts that I seriously considered for this scope were the G11, AZ/EQ-G and the CGX. The desire is to use Sky Safari 6 running on an iPad Pro for mount control in the field. I know that some may say that there is some overkill here, but this is an initial setup so at least some ability to grow with whatever mount is desired. Funds aren't unlimited, but they are not too constrained either.
While I clearly understand that the G11 is one magnificent mount, it is just a tad too old school and the Gemini 2 GoTo system UI is very awkward. If I was planning to manually drive the mount more, the G11 might get more love for its excellent mechanics, but the competition is scoring more points presently plus the G11/Gemini 2 comes at fairly significant price disadvantage although cost was not an overwhelming factor.
The CGX is clearly a mount designed with the automation as a core component aimed at astroimaging. I have had all the manual setup/driving of a mount I want at this point, so Celestron's StarSense, ASPA and SkyPortal really added points to the CGX. However, the CGX mount itself, even after almost 2 years in production is still showing nagging niggles in its mechanical behavior. Yes, I am aware that most all of them can be adjusted out by the end user but it seems to be a hit/miss on what you will get out of the factory.
Then there is the Atlas Pro AZ/ED-G mount. As a more mature, yet fairly recent mount, there is a lot of excellent history on the mount and it seems to be one of those mounts that everyone loves. What I was not so sold on was the SynScan system. I really wanted the Celestron system. Then I discovered that Celestron had created a convertor/port expander that allowed their StarSense/ASPA system to replace the SynScan system. Now I realize that I am giving up the really nice AZ/EQ-G's encoder closed loop capability (at least from what I can determine) when using StarSense control but I gain time to light when setting up and I can alway fire up SynScan if desired. Then there is the AZ/EQ-G's ability to function as an AltAz mount as well as handling a main and secondary scope for visual viewing.
So, the AZ/EQ-G mount with Celestron's StarSense for SW has a significant lead in this horse race. The cost delta of adding StarSense for SW is a wash to me due to the slightly lower cost of the of the AZ/EQ-G as compared to the CGX.
I realized going in that ALL 3 of these mounts were excellent and trying to finesse a winner out of the 3 would not be easy.
We are not quite ready to throw the switch on the purchase of our imaging platform so thought I would toss it out there for the group wisdom feedback.
The plan is to also toss a 60mm guide scope riding on the scope rings with the StarSense occupying the finder scope mount on the Mak-Newt. Also a TPI spreader to solidify the tripod OR a tripod pier will be in the mix. Still researching dedicated imaging cameras so thoughts in that area will be appreciated.
David