Over the summer, High Point Scientific, a great telescope store kindly lent me the Skywatcher EQM
35 pro mount and i mainly wanted the mount for a video idea i had called astrophotography from 100
to 10 000 and i released that video in july and for that video the eqm 35 worked out beautifully
i've since returned them out to high point but i wanted to give my thoughts and a quick
mini review now the reason this isn't a full review is if for full reviews what i really
like doing is comparisons with lots of image samples compared to other similar products
sort of at the right price range and capabilities that's what i do with my filter and lens shootouts
unfortunately it's harder to get my hands on a bunch of similarly spec'd mounts at the same
time as these are more expensive and critically large items that are hard to store compared to
like filters and lenses but i can tell you if i was going to compare the eqm35 to other mounts
the top ones i'd consider are the celestron avx the skywatcher heq5 and the ioptron Cem26
there these are three smaller go-to equatorial mounts in this sort of middle ground in terms
of price which is this 700 to 1200 range and i can say generally when it comes to mountains
i have found the adage you get what you pay for is pretty much true but keep in mind um
when i say that the most expensive mount i've ever owned is my skywatcher eq6r which is around 1700
today and mounts go way up from there so i don't have any experience with really high-end mounts
anyways onto the eq m35 it's said to be a sort of combination of different mounts that skywatcher
had previously made um and then had put into a package that was designed for astrophotography
in a lot of different ways so it has the more accurate 180 tooth worm gear the electronics
and the heavy tripod of their eq5 pro mount but the size of the mount head is more similar to
the skywatcher eq 3-2 and skywatcher currently sells the eqm35 for 785 us dollars it comes with
the mount head of course the control panel which conveniently has a full size type b usb plug for
computer connection a spare vixen dovetail a synscan hand controller two seven and a half
pound counterweights and a two inch steel tripod and i was actually pretty surprised by the tripod
it's just as beefy as the one that came with my eq 6r but the eqm 35 has a much smaller mount head
but i'm not going to complain about that because a sturdy tripod is essential for deep sky imaging
there is a little bit of assembly required when you first get the mount but nothing too bad that
includes tools and good instructions unfortunately my copy had the declination clutch put on wrong so
it interfered with operation of the mount when slewing away from home position and i had to
actually unscrew that clutch and reseat the clutch knob for the mount to work properly and i sort of
expect stuff like that with these mass-produced cheaper mounts but it's a weird conundrum because
you need experience in the hobby to recognize what is wrong with something but the experienced people
typically will buy more and more expensive amounts while naturally people just getting started in the
hobby will buy these cheaper mounts so my advice there is before you return some new mount you
got that isn't working for some reason try to connect with a local astronomy club and see if
anyone local can help you out because sometimes these local mentors and you know there are more
experienced set of eyes can often identify and fix a problem really quick that declination clutch
thing was actually really simple once i figured out what was wrong my biggest takeaway from using
this mount on a few different occasions this summer is that the tracking accuracy was really
impressive i tried it with up to 12 pounds of gear on it 430 millimeter focal length with a dslr
so that gives me an image scale of about two arcseconds per pixel and i had no problem with
unguided subs they were mostly all keepers at 30 seconds at 60 seconds i even tried 90 seconds
so tracking was no issue what i did have an issue with was the pointing accuracy and this is when
you issue a go-to command how accurately does it go to the thing that you're trying to find and
you build what's called a pointing model in the controller by doing the three-star alignment
so that's where you find bright stars you center them on your dslr screen and after you build that
pointing model when you issue a go-to command it's supposed to put you into the right place
well i found just like with my iop run smart eq mount you couldn't really rely on the go to
even after a three star alignment it would be often full degrees away from where it should be
especially if i was moving very far in the sky and so i'm sure the question i'll get is could this
just be a problem with my copy of the mount well i don't think so because this seems to plague a lot
of low cost mounts as i mentioned it plagues my smart eq by ioptron and i've also confirmed with
others who've used the eqm35 that the pointing accuracy doesn't seem to be very good so is this
a deal breaker well if you're buying this mount for go go-to and you plan to use the system with
just the hand controller then yeah i wouldn't recommend the mount however the real reason this
mount is a bargain it is just 785 dollars is that it comes with that usb connection and from there
you can hook it up to a computer and so i use like a windows laptop with eq mod to control the mount
but you can also get these raspberry pi devices that are popular like the asi air or a stellar
mate and control it that way and as soon as you're controlling it from a computer you can then use
plate solving which is where your camera takes a picture of the sky wherever it's pointed looks
at the star patterns to figure out where it's pointed and then sends a command back to the mount
for which direction to move and it does all of this automatically you can take however many
tries and needs until you're pointed exactly where you want to be pointed so it's like
souped up go to and plate solving is like magic once you get it working it works so well so as
long as you're willing to use a computer of some kind whether it's a windows laptop or linux based
raspberry pi well then i can definitely recommend this mount if you're using a light telescope setup
or a telephoto lens in my opinion this mount is perfect for those kinds of optics so if you're
using a telephoto lens a wide field refractor and you're under the payload limit which is 22 pounds
or 10 kilograms it's gonna be great i used it primarily with an apertura 72 millimeter refractor
with a field flattener and a dslr and that was a great setup for this mount you could easily
you have plenty of weight limit left to add auto guiding and a computer and plate solving
right onto the mount and have tons of fun with it i think that would
bring you years into the hobby before you run into objects well i hope this mini review
helps someone out there who is maybe looking at this mount and maybe someday when i have more
space i can really do full full-on mount shootouts which would be fun till next
time this was a five minute friday with me nico carver also known as nebula photos clear skies