Skywatcher CQ350 - An Astrophotographers Dream? Full review
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 พ.ค. 2024
- In this video we take a closer look at the Skywatcher CQ350 center balanced equatorial mount. This beast in the EQ7 category boasts a huge astrophotography payload perfect for all your imaging equipment and telescope gear. The CQ350 is a rival to the CGX, CGX-L, and the CEM70. Come along and find out the best attributes of the CQ350 and the quirks that make this an almost perfect mount.
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#skywatcher #telescope #stargazing #cq350 - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Good to see new faces online, seems like the regulars just aren’t producing videos anymore, I.e. Astro biscuit…?
Top video 👍 merci
Nice mount, but the biggest issue is the fact that the ports for power and handset and USB 3 input, are on the moving axis, and should be like ioptron and be on a fixed positions so the cables dont move, this is what pushed me to ioptron CEM70 instead, and you still have to rely on 3rd party ASCOM drivers like GSS and EQMOD to run from a PC as skywatcher don't produce there own that’s any good…so a few issues to sort before its anywhere near the ioptron CEM70 or 120…
Where did you get that OTA wrap? It’s so cool!
My friend locally made it for me! It’s so much fun!
@9:36 M51 unguided at 180 seconds? Are you sure? That mount has no encoders so I find that hard to belief, especially if that if that M51 unguided shot was using the C9.25
I’m positive. It’s using a hyperstar so we aren’t talking 2500mm of FL, but 535mm rather so a lot easier to keep tracking on. Full focal length will require very precision autoguiding.
Ahhh you didn't say anything about Hyperstar on the M51 image and the start of your video shows C9.25 without Hyperstar
Right on time - shortlisting mounts and this is one of the candidates!
Question which seems to have no definitive answer anywhere - were you able to deploy PPEC or at least PEC with EQMOD or GSServer?
I personally didn’t get into but a friend of mine who has one has successfully trained the PEC with EDMOD and it delivers very well. But out of the box, guiding and tracking is already SO good, so that’s a huge thumbs up in my opinion!
@@MaximumAstronomy I am more and more warming up to this mount. Still looking at CEM70 as this is longer on the market and more mature but the threshold for cq350 to be in this zone too is coming up.
Honestly, using a guide scope is more of a distraction then a benefit.
I'm guessing they won't modify that power problem now that they have a harmonic mount like the Wave 150i with a 25kg capacity.
I’m going to assume the same as you. The harmonic drive is going to be their new bread and butter is my guess.
I swapped out the tripod with the pier of 8R. The clearance is very useful and has smaller footprint. But the pier feels like it weighs 100 lbs.
Oh probably! Makes it a bigger beast!!!
@@MaximumAstronomy yeah cant lug it around unless you are buff. The original tripod was not light either. But this is definitely heavy. The clerance is very useful i must say.
You also have the servo and stepper motor issue the wrong way round, most mounts have stepper motors and not servo motors, stepper’s are the norm, and servo are much better and fitted into high end mounts…
I believe the point I’m trying to make in the video is why the stepper motor is better in astrophotography in this class. Both motor designs are equally as good and capable for astrophotography IF done correctly which is the challenge at the cheaper price points. Servo motors like what is found on the CGX have internal reduction gears, usually made of plastic which introduced a further bit of backlash into the system. Things like the 8 SE mount for example can have horrible backlash because of the reduction gears and there is no way to adjust those things. Stepper motors have one big wheel inside that spins, reducing the need for the several reduction gears which eliminate quite a bit of the backlash. That coupled with the belt drives and a spring loaded worm almost alleviate any issues in the drive system for backlash compensation for guiding and such. No it will not be perfect, but it’s far better for backlash purposes than cheaply made servo motors with standard gears at the same price point. Power consumption the servo is better. And steppers have higher vibrations because of their design, but when you’re trying to use it for guiding on a big beefy mount, I have had and seen better results from the stepper motor than the servo motors from the CQ350 vs the CGX. Higher end mounts typically have much better resolution encoders AND much better made precision servo motors which can have their advantages. No doubt the higher end mounts have far better drives in them but that’s why you pay substantially more for them of course.
That's a BEEFY mount!!!
Looks heavy and expensive.
That's the reality of any usable mount which provides that amount of payload 😢