Sky-Watcher EQ8-R Pro Telescope Mount 

Here's my PHD2 Guiding Graph with the EQ8-R Pro: astrobackyard.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/phd2-graph.jpg

That mount's a beast! Also very proud you got special access for this, seeing your channel grow like this is wonderful

I’ve had the standard EQ8 for the last 2 years and love it. The upgrades look great. Time for you to build an observatory to hold it. You won’t regret it.

sheesh thats a laser, glad you had the chance to play with it, thats a mount we (mortals) can only dream of ,

The insta pictures are amazing, thank you for sharing. Also, I cant wait to see your observatory!

Great Commercial for Sky-Watcher

Your enthusiasm is always infectious! Thanks.

Hey Trevor! My friend, that mount looks AWESOME!! My goodness you're a lucky guy to be able to sample such a beautiful, well engineered piece of kit! You have come so far with your RU-vid Channel and i'm sincerely happy for you sir! Well Done Trevor!

You are a lucky guy,what a beast.mind you,you deserve it with all the good work you do.keep it up mate

Обзоры американцев самые лучшие. Даже просто обстановка - чистые дворы, тихо, спокойно. И всегда хорошая погода, солнечная! При такой обстановке, хорошей зарплате, спокойствии только и можно заниматься любимым хобби. Смотрю в окно в России - грустно...

Wow Trevor! Great pics:) Nice video as usual, hey Dylan! That is on the list when I look at building an observatory :)

That's a monster! Congrats on getting to test it out.

What a great video and mount, look forward to more images.

Awesome video Trevor! Such an impressive piece of hardware. Really fun following your journey in AP and seeing the production value your videos getting better over time.

Very nice Trevor! Your skills and your great RU-vid channel are always giving you perks. Well deserved.

Great video, Trevor! That mount looks incredible, and incredibly heavy as well

Damn this thing is huge. Awesome shots, very beautiful.

Looks to be a very capable mount indeed. I now know what I want for Christmas :-) The images at the end of the video were simply stunning. Nicely done Trevor!!

Lucky you! I admire your passion. Glad stumbled onto your channel while doing research into buying my first real telescope!

Those 3 green screws to lock the scope in place is my favourite part of the mount. Looks so cool.

amazing video Trevor!!!. I got my eq6rpro because you had gotten great results from it.

Awesome videa as always Trevor! That mount is a snazzy beast 👌

Man...what a rig! Just look at the smile on your face! I would be smiling too....

every time I see an upload notification I get happy !

Love the color palette on the Tadpoles.

This looks an absolute beast

Great video and the photos are amazing! :D

Nice mount. had an Esprit 150 too , siting on an Skywatcher Az-EQ6-GT , till my ex start making big troubles. Have fun on you rig any way. very nice stuff you are vloggin about.

HAHA Rudy rockin a deuce at 4:20 wow those astrophotos at the end :0

Beautiful mount ... WOW

Wow amazing upgrade!!!!!

Another competitor in the midrange high precision encoder market is a good thing. So many cool options for astrophotographers these days! Thanks for a great video. I would love to see a shootout some day between the real time encoder based mounts and it would be awesome to see you lead that effort.

Great ! Thanks for early review

Big black EQ6-R that can hold lot of weight! Observatory class upgrade! A bit pricey than expected but worth it looks like! I will definitely get this at some point.

It’s so beautiful 🤩 what a beast

Oh sir, your telescope is a monster. I cant wait for see your next video. I enjoyed all your videos.....i developed my astromy knowladge. Thank you very much sir😉😉

Wow! What a beast Trevor! Keep up the good work!! "-"

Wow! After using that incredible mount it will be hard to go back. What incredible images. Your next project will have to be installing an observatory with a solid pier. I think we will need to pass the hat around to buy Dylan a decent tripod for his Star Adventurer - he still has it mounted on that flimsy camcorder thing!

Great video mate, great review.

great video like always

Superb review 👍🏻

Trevor, you really need to get yourself a JMI Wheeley Bar if you already don't have one. Before I built my observatory it's what saved me and allowed me to image every clear night without wasting too much time setting up and without hurting myself. Cool video by the way, looks like an awesome mount.

Hi Trevor, Now all you need is to build the Observatory to put it in, absolutely fantastic :-)

That is amazing rig!

Awesome videos trev

I purchased a Sky-Watcher EQ [can't remember exact model, however it is heavy] years ago and I got to use it about six times before it broke - forever.

Hi Trevor, Long time viewer of your channel. Thanks for the review. I was lucky enough to be at the Bintel release tonight and met Dylan. He is a great guy and the mount is fabulous. Your work is inspirational.

As a tester of Sky-Watcher gear myself, I haven't gotten to use the EQ-8 R Pro mount yet. It's $5000 as Trevor tested...and $8000 (with tripod) if you purchase the EQ-8 Rh Pro variant, which adds the precision encoders. Sky-Watcher has had this mount for years, selling it only to the Euro market...I remember the Sky-Watcher USA guys (Jeff and Kevin) having it set-up at NEAIC back in 2014...and at that time they didn't have plans to bring it to N. America. Glad they finally did.

I hope Sky-Watcher will add the cable management options on smaller mounts, such as EQ6 and HEQ5. I'm looking to upgrade my mount in the next 6-12 months from HEQ5 to something like AZ-EQ6 or EQ6-R. Those USB and power ports would be a nice to have!

So thaaats why you weren't saying what scope you were using in your posts! Awesome stuff

This will fit perfectly in an obsevary ;)

What a monster! I would kill to get one of those!

Would love to see you review at some point the avalon m-uno mount

I just fell in love

regarding your image @8:40 , there is a trick to get rid of purple stars. invert the picture colors. put green saturation down and invert it back. in pixinsight there is even a special tool to remove the green: SCNR

Nice, i thought this was going to be a prototype flop like the ?eq7? ,i've owned the eq8 for about 3-4 years and having to work around it's flaws ,i hope this is a big improvement ,i see they didn't fix the exposed dec and ra encoders,They have a foam debri guard but foreign objects still manage to get into the encoders, the large 435 teeth gear disc are usually eccentric to the bore,this causes binding when slewing with the clutch off,a nuisance if you have hyper tuned the mount and need to realign quickly without redoing a star alignment,i hope spring loaded worms are in the eq8r. The offset weight from the motors was a big problem,it looks like they have fixed this. The worm gears need taper bearings, i have replaced mine a few times,the stock bearing tolerance are not that great,the float play adds a lot to the p.e. moisture gets into the motor housing from dew .. it looks like they fix the tiny clutches which was such a pain if you have big hands.35kg was about the max for 0.6'' rms and under on my eq8, that being said since you mentioned the eq8r can do 50 kg astro that must mean it has bigger motors on it and or possibly has spring loaded worms. is that the maxi starlight fw wheel ?. i have one it's awesome!, holds 9x 2'' filters,green looks alot better! btw it looks like you didn't use the pass through i/o on the dec! just a heads up,getting replacements parts for premium mounts like a eq8 or more then likely the eq8r is almost non existent,i tried for months and no luck , if you can get extended warranty on such a premium mount then i recommend you do,replacement parts will not be coming unless it's inside a new mount that's shipping to your door...if skywatcher can keep the price down to $5-6 k then this mount sure will be the go to for big scopes,other then that if you want a real performer for a lot of weight then i would go see what 10 micron/paramount or mesu optics have...

Hey Trevor, thanks for this nice presentation. Do you have any news about the Skywatcher CQ350 PRO ?

Two words for this mount, bad ass

Another beast in the town :-)

I'm a bit bemused by this video. Yes it's a new mount with a huge payload capacity. But that's pretty much all you said. A bit of cable management and a home button. Great but how accurate is it ? The guide scope is what makes mounts accurate. I personally use a HEQ5 but I have to say Meads lx 850 with its built in automatic guide scope is still the best. No need for separate software for guiding etc just point the scope and it automatically starts the guiding. Similar payload capacity too. That the one I'd get if I had the funds. This eq8 r doesn't even have a polar scope built in.

It's a monster!

Nice. Be interesting to see how accurate the tracking is vs earlier and cheaper versions of SW mounts. Better tracking could mean less reliance upon guiding or longer exposures without issues. Please do some kind of test to come to a conclusion re guiding improvements.

That OTA is impressive. Can you share some more of the images captured by it

Your images are absolutely stunning, awesome mount & scope. One question, did you not get any problems setting up on your lawn bearing in mind the combined weight of your're setup?

Nice review Trevor. Just wondering how far the payload can be pushed for imaging purposes.

Great video trevor, as per usual, but is there any chance we can have a better look at that monster scope atop that mount?

That's no moon. It's a space station. Must be like a kid in a candy store with that thing

Hey Trevor, does that pier tripod give you enough clearance so your camera/efw doesn't bang into the tripod legs?

Amazing shots Trevor, especially the tadpoles. What's the song featured during the photo showing?

Good for you

Does any body know how to get power out of the 12v outputs I’ve tried but nothing

Hi Trevor! awesome video and review! have you heard about the EQ8-Rh pro Mount with Renishaw RA Encoder? if so.. will you PLEASE make a video on that as well?? :]

Congrats on the new toy. A bit bummed out that they decided to split the Eq8 into a deluxe and a base version, with the new base version costing basically what the old one cost - but without encoders :( A question for you - I am thinking of upgrading from my NEQ6 - it's getting old and I am looking for something to securely hold my new 8" Newtonian. I was thinking iOptron CEM60... your test of the mount sounded really good, but seems you skipped it in favor or the EQ6-R and now the EQ8?

My jaw dropped at the sight of the tadpoles nebula :O Havn't seen an amateur astronomer capture that one so beautifully. Nice job Trevor

Great mount...running smoothly since 2015 (of course EQ8, not the new EQ8R-Pro), but for sure not recommended for mobile use! ;-)

oh wow, once again I'm jealous of your gear :D

On the top of the tube rings on the new esprite150ed are the threaded holes metric or are they still unc threads. Because some people redrilled and rethreaded the earlier model because they couldn't match up accessories. Great review. Wish you clear sky's.

Love the music! Where do you get it?

Thank you for all your videos. You channel got me excited about astrophotography and got me familiar with (a) process and (b) tools and brands. However, I have 3 questions and wanted to seek your expert opinion: 1. I’m interested in both viewing and photographing both planets and DSOs (BTW, didn’t know all these jargons before I bumped into your page :)). Is William Optics GT81 a good / versatile scope for that? 2. What accessories / specifications should I buy to cover both viewing and photography? I want to use my Nikon DSLR as a camera. 3. Is iOptron CEM25p a good scope for the above? Thanks a lot in advance, and look forward to many more hours of your video! 🙏🏻

I don't know why I don't get notifications for this channel when new video upload

I want one !

How does it compare to the Losmandy G11

That's a great looking scope for sure. Maybe it's just me but its pretty annoying that spending that much money and they can't include some type of polar alignment option. Even if most people use their own they could still include the aluminum bracket geez.

Are you planning to do another live stream? Love your channel.

What kind of drive does it use on the ra and dec axis? Would love to see the guiding traces for this. Can i mount my pole master camera to it.....cant wait for part two of this video! Update: Forgot too read the description: belt drive and a polar scope so probably good for a polemaster?

awesome

Hey there i want to get in this hole thing with observing the universe stuff. Im sorry for my bad English actually im from Germany. Do you have a tip regarding equipment? Thank you in advance :)

This mount is also compatible with the Starsense if you get the correct one. Or you could use ASIAIR which makes it superfluous. There is also an upgraded version with RA absolute encoder which makes additional autoguiding unnecessary.

Looks like the Orion HDX110. They had some teething issues. Wonder if they worked it out with this model. Sweet setup with the 150.

how does it compare to CEM and Paramount MYT and astrophysics?

Hi Trevor, I really enjoy your video's and reviews. Although this mount is completely out of my league it keeps me motivated to keep on struggling with my rig. Looking at your images at the end of the video I notice a lot of Chromatic aberration around the stars. (might be you tube). Lately I have been using Topaz Denoise AI providing me really astonishing results with regard to noise reduction and removal of chromatic aberration. It might be a bad advice for your level of astro-photography but I thought let's mention it anyway.

Nice review. Btw: there are home position sensors but they only work with the hand controller so you have to connect this first before you start using ASCOM. You said there is no polar scope but also with the scope I think it will be neccessar to drive it in a exakt homeong position. I don't understand why skywatcher didn't mount sales like on the AZ EQ 6 Pro. Best regards

For heavy-duty mount like that you'd need wheels under the tirpod legs so you can just push it to the backyard without having to assemble it every time

OK, it's been several years after this video came out. Would you still recommend this mount? Any revision on the things you like/dislike, areas for improvement?

Looking on the OPT website, the Sky Watcher Esprit 150ED is $6500 (USD), and the EQ8-R is $5000, compared to a Celestron 11" RASA or SCT for $3500 and a CGX-L mount for $3600. So, why spend significantly more money on a refractor with a 6" aperture, when you could get a RASA or SCT with almost twice the aperture and without chromatic aberration, etc., and spend significantly more on a mount that does about the same thing as the CGX-L, albeit with a heavier weight capacity (110 pounds vs 75 pounds)? I'm asking honestly, not trolling. Is there a significant quality difference between the two mounts and/or telescopes? I know you have an 11" SCT on a CGX-L there with you now, so I'm interested in hearing your opinion regarding which of these setups you prefer and why. I understand preference is as real a thing as quality and performance, so I don't discount that, but I'm just surprised by the price difference in these pieces of equipment. Most would view a higher price and take it to mean it's better quality, but experience has taught me that's not always the case. Anyway, if you have the time, and inclination, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts about this. Thanks! :-)

So now that you have used both this mount and the Celestron CGX-L, is there a comparison video coming ???? Or did I miss it ????

Recording the taurid meteor stream? It would be a super power to document something like a meteor stream.

Haha Dylan good to see you here. I was a helper and brought my setup for the nights at star stuff 2... no star stuff 3??

I have a question. So when you process the stacked image in photoshop and use the curve function, does photoshop add color to the image or it just exaggerates the color that’s already there? I want to get into astrophotography so bad

Wow!