Skywatcher CQ350 - An Astrophotographers Dream? Full review 

My friend locally made it for me! It’s so much fun!

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.

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.

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

Can you tell me a little more about lining it up? Like polar alignment? Or finding targets? What are you interested in seeing?

I’m going to assume the same as you. The harmonic drive is going to be their new bread and butter is my guess.

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.

what? 😂

That's the reality of any usable mount which provides that amount of payload 😢

it's very heavy, but when you compare it to other mounts with similar capacity, it's pretty well priced.