Surely the EQ6 mount is too well known to require a review? Maybe but like all things astronomical, this excellent mount continues to evolve so perhaps it’s worth another look.
Fit and finish on the latest incarnation, the NEQ6 Pro is pretty good and mine arrived in pristine condition. I particularly wanted to be able to use both Vixen/Synta and the more substantial Losmandy dovetail equipped telescopes on this mount so the fact that two pucks would be supplied, one for each type of dovetail was going to be a little bonus. Imagine then my surprise and pleasure to discover that a single dual saddle came installed on the mount and, even better, this was of the spring loaded compression type. I have always thought that the rather crude ‘bolt tightening up against one side of the dovetail bar’ system was a low grade solution so this new saddle was a breath of fresh air. ADM engineering it isn’t but it is a good leap forwards by Sky-Watcher who have finally recognised that the Vixen dovetail is quite challenged with heavier ‘scopes and a source of potential differential flexure when imaging with anything but the lightest of systems.
The first thing I normally do with new equipment like this is to download the latest firmware but there was no need, it was up to date as supplied. I checked for smooth rotation of the RA and DEC axes and all was well here so time for switch-on. No problems here either, the usual singing note from the motors indicated that they were ready for action so I completed the date/time/location etc pages then carried out a dummy 1 star alignment inside the house as you do hear horror stories of mounts ending up pointing in totally the wrong direction! Not this one, it stopped exactly where I expected although I did notice that the drive had a little more momentary ‘rattle’ just before it stopped than I am used to with my older SkyScan upgraded EQ6 but this was the same as all the other (N)EQ6s I have had contact with in recent years.
I still use a polarscope for most of my polar alignments (it appeals to my ‘fine engineering and tinkering’ side) and to my surprise, the crosshair reticule was perfectly centred in the RA axis when I carried out the start of the ‘object at a long distance’ alignment. This made calibrating the rest of the system a breeze.
I am loving this mount although its white livery does make my original EQ6 look a tad dated!
