Hello all. I picked up the AZ GTi a few weeks ago and just had the opportunity to get first light with it. Due mostly to the attendant terrible weather that accompanies such purchases. I thought I'd take a minute to relate my experience to help out anyone that is considering it as a purchase.
I'll preface this by saying that this is my first goto. As a result, some of my errors may be due to that. If so, perhaps it will also keep a fellow newbie from making the same mistakes. I was using my current Celestron Omni XLT 102. The AZ GTi I had set up using the beta Right Hand / EQ firmware.
I got to my observing site at the local astronomy club and got set up pretty quickly. On this run, I was using the standard tripod that accompanies the mount, although I do have a much beefier one I'll usually use. But I wanted to test the included tripod so I could judge whether it was suitable to hang on to as a nice light grab-n-go set up.
First, I tested both single star and north and level alignment procedures. Both worked well, although north and level was off on the initial two stars (more on this later) and they both ended up slightly out of the field of view. For reference, I was using my Celestron zoom eyepiece set at 24mm. I also used Betelgeuse and Polaris as my alignment stars, in that order. I then slewed back to the Orion area to start taking in sights there.
Almost immediately, I ran into the loose pier bolt issue. The bolt loosens and then the scope freely turns while operating the focuser. I had put a couple of lock washers in place as I set up, since I had experienced this issue on a previous failed first light attempt. They didn't solve it at first. I took my OTA off and pulled the pier. As I had just initially done it hand tight snug, I decided to try cranking it down. This fixed it for the remainder of the evening, but is certainly a bad design. I'm not sure why they couldn't just put a fixed post from pier to head or vice versa. Seems like an easy solution. I'll have to look and see how others have dealt with it, as I have seen it mentioned.
Now I had to re-align, and the inaccuracy of my first alignment initially made me think. Perhaps it would be obvious to a more experienced person, but my initial north and level alignment was done using a regular hand held compass, I pulled up Polaris and did my next alignment using true north rather than magnetic north. Once I did that, the alignment stars fell easily in my fov right away. Not sure why it's not mentioned in the documentation or the SynScan app. Maybe, as I say, a more experienced person would know it without thinking about it. Or maybe they figured either would get you close enough, which is true.
I won't detail the rest of the evening, as it was spent observing. I will relate what I noticed as to performance though. The gotos were very good, always landing within the fov of the 24mm setting. I suspect they would be spot-on had I been using a reticle eyepiece rather than just eyeballing it. The tracking was also very good from a couple short tests on Andromeda and Uranus when I decided to take the opportunity to go to the building and warm up a bit and use the facilities. Each tracked well for the approximately 15 minutes the scope was left idling on them.
On one of the breaks, I also took my phone with me and lost the wifi connection as a result. Thankfully, I found this didn't affect the alignment at all. I simply turned my wifi off and back on again, and connected right back good as new. A shame it wouldn't reconnect automatically, but nice to know it's not the end of the world to walk out of its range. Certainly nice it didn't necessitate a re-alignment or cause any other wonky behavior.
The SynScan Pro app itself is very capable, although I do prefer Sky Safari 6. Which brings up the other negative I had. I find it really bad design to require the SynScan App and SS be running at the same time. With as much as SS has been adopted, you would think that they would work with them to do a better integration. I'm sure my battery suffered for having to run both. After 4 hours, I was down to about 35% charge. My lithium power pack has a charger, and I would have had to use it had I stayed out any longer. Shouldn't be necessary, and I'm sure the extra drain from having to run both apps had a lot to do with it.
That aside, I found both apps extremely responsive. I know a lot of Celestron owners using their wifi mounts have reported lag between the scope and the SS app, but I didn't experience a single issue with the AZ GTi. Nor with the SynScan app either. Backlash was not an issue either, as it seemed to stop on a dime when I let go of the slew buttons. The lack of tactile feel wasn't overly bothersome for me. Perhaps it would be if I had come from using a hand control.
The tripod itself is also very stable, for what it is. I had the legs fully extended, and the dampening times were acceptable. At 24mm, I judged them to be about 2-3 secs. At full magnification at 8mm, they were extended to 3-5 secs. Those could probably be brought down with vibration pads. This was on grass, so concrete or a harder surface might prove different.
Overall, I was very pleased. I'm sure I will get much more comfortable with it as I gain experience, but I had a blast. The dual apps and pier bolt issues brought my overall impression down somewhat, but I'd still give it a solid 4/5 stars. I definitely feel the gotos were great, especially since I was only roughly centering objects. I am extremely happy with this purchase and my first foray into goto territory.
I hope maybe this post gives some people some insight and helps them decide if the unit is right for them.
