Celestron CGX Mount Unboxing First Thoughts

[dylan_odonnell]

Two giant boxes with Celestron written arrived at my doorstep today! I love those days. But today especially as I'd just sold and packed away my trusty EQ6 ready for a newer mount with a bigger max payload capacity. Here are my immediate thoughts on unboxing.

(Disclaimer, I'm on "Team Celestron" so am an ambassador of sorts for them, and I work as a third party with Bintel. However neither of these companies pay me for comment and I pay for my own gear like anyone, though I do get discounts and heads up on new stuff from time to time.)

I won't get the weather or the time to fully test the mount until after xmas, so these are just some observations until I can do some real world testing for you.

- Great build quality, not wobbly and plasticky like some of their past mounts that put me off Celestron mounts initially. Everything is machined and tight, like what you'd expect from an Apple product in a way.

- Like all good reviewers, I threw the manual over my shoulder in disgust and just started mashing things together like lego ... and it worked mostly! The upper axis comes boxed "upside down" but it immediately corrected itself by initialising the "switch positions" when I turned it on.

- I was confused about the azimuth adjustments initially before realising you had to loosen 4 nuts on the base plate before the rotation of the screws would do anything. This was counterintuitive but makes sense as it can be locked down well once polar alignment fine adjustments are made.

- The little windows and removable motor shields are totally useless (for someone like me anyway) but they look great and it's nice to see the belts working away.

- The slew noise is loudish but pretty/unintrusive/smooth/dull .. no variation or squawking that EQ6s sometimes have. Just a clear mechanical whirr. Not too loud, just not quiet.

- The sidereal tracking noise is very quiet indeed. Imperceptible almost like Celestron mounts often are, unlike the EQ6 which has that techno beat buzz you get used to but isn't really that bad anyway.

- The mount remembers your site details / time & date internally which is great, but no amazing feat. All mounts should always have done this in the first place.

- Still no power supply provided with the mount. I don't get it. It's possibly the cheapest thing they could provide aside from the bubble wrap. Not just celestron but all astro vendors - is it too much to ask to include the cable that makes your purchase actually turn on?

- The cable they do provide is the old ciggy-lighter number. I know when the original James Bond drove cars it might have seemed cool, convenient even, to have a power source in your car that also lights your cancer-sticks but why on earth this become the de facto standard for astro gear is beyond me. I kind of like it when Apple kills off floppy drives, USB2 ports and other old standards but astro vendors seem unwilling to do this. I'm ranting beyond the scope of this review, but you know what I mean. These are space age devices, surely we can handle an upgrade to portable power ports by now or you know, include a power supply.

- Double handles, huge knobs all great, but the nuts on the base and for azimuth locking require a large allen key, which though provided, is easily lost and an odd design choice. Makes no difference for me in an observatory but I can see people in the backyard or star parties trying to tighten these flush nuts by hand, scrabbling in the darkness for the missing key or resorting to pliers to scratch them up in desperation. Small ribbed bolts may have been a better choice, but perhaps they were avoided for cable snag potential. I didn't even realise the allen key was there until I read the manual and found it hidden under the bottom handle.

- Black Mounts, Eggshell White OTA's .. it's a design faux pas that I can excuse but my wife thinks looks silly. She kinda liked the All-white observatory with White Edge HD and White EQ6 :) I suppose colour could have a minor impact on equipment temperature but regardless, it would be cool to see some consistency across the product lines so they match.

Apart from those minor quibbles I'm very excited to see this very solid, modern mount in action. I'm not looking forward to using the hand controller as I'm used to my EQMOD setup and the Planewave software is not available until Feb. I will miss my plate solving mostly. Also I tend to remote control from inside the house so the hand controller is just an annoying reason to go outside for target selection and what-not. Still, all this should be resolved in time. Feel free to ask questions if you have any.

d

[dylan_odonnell]

I've also posted this on CN which will have some follow up Q&A but won't cross post here. Check thread at http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/559518-celestron-cgx/page-6 if you like.

[glend]

So Dylan do i take it you imported the CGX direct and not through Bintel? If so who did you purchase through and was it at the current $2199 USD retail price? How did you ship and what was the all up import price with GST? These are important consideration for others considering the CGX. If Bintel or Celestron in some way facilitated or provided 'consideration' in the transaction then this could be seen as a product placement piece. Nice mount none the less.

[dylan_odonnell]

Oh I've been asking for it via Bintel since it was announced a few months back. I didn't get any favours, I just had to wait for the shipment and release date like others. My order was one of a few for Bintel I believe. If you're interested in a newly released product definitely ask them ahead of time, they'll back order it for you no worries. Contact Bintel to confirm RRP. I think it's around $3.5k but don't quote me.

I did get a discount on the RRP but that's because I'm their web dev, it's not brand payola. I thought the review was fairly explicit about my brand relationships and my criticisms of the mount :) If I was trying to push the product and vendor I would've included pricing and ordering info, I just wanted to share the details for this anticipated mount. Hope that's a bit clearer!

(TLDR If it sucks - I'll tell you!)

d

[h0ughy]

looks like a cool bit of gear. look forward to the results you get. be nice to play over Xmas but i am sure you will get your fair share of storms to stop you

[glend]

Thanks Dylan, i have been considering ordering one from Optcorp, and had discussed with Luke at Andrews about their availability through them. Hence my interest. I would prefer the head unit only for my observatory but Celestron will not split it, despite the tripod criticism on CN. I will follow your adventure. Clear skies.

[Camelopardalis]

Nice one Dylan :thumbsup: look forward to hearing how you get along with it and seeing the results :D you have a very understanding wife if she lets you setup your mount in the living room ;)

[dylan_odonnell]

Thanks and yep.. real world tests next. Will share as soon as possible.

In the meantime, my unboxing and setup overview video is below. I love the switch position memory! No more losing alignment when swapping OTAs, rebalancing or losing power!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtmJkmcJTA8&feature=youtu.be

d

[toc]

If it is around 3.5K, then I am in...I asked Bintel about pricing almost a month ago, but they didnt respond :shrug:

[dylan_odonnell]

Ok I checked with them. They are $3299 and I believe they only have 2 left and the store just closed for Christmas. It's not online yet so basically it's whoever calls in their order first when they reopen. Hope this helps!

d

[Camelopardalis]

Given the price of an EQ6, that looks like a pretty good deal :thumbsup:

[Atmos]

Looks like a nice new mount :) Looks quite stiff and bulky, that's good. If it doesn't make that jazzy persistent tracking noise that the EQ6 does, that would be nice :)

[glend]

Dylan i have emailed them last night of my interest in one, hope that insures a place in the queue and we will have a conversation when they reopen. In the mean time i will try to work out how to control it with Sky Safari and Wifi.

[Camelopardalis]

From accounts over the pond it works with EQmod using the Celestron driver.

[toc]

I've also put an order in - if that pricing holds, it will be a bit of a change in pricing policy for Celestron! My CGEM looks to have carked it, so it's a good excuse to upgrade I guess :)

[dylan_odonnell]

Ok I had a chance to give it a test run tonight. First light! If there can be such a thing.. for a mount. :D

I ran the 2 star alignment + 2 calibration stars + ASPA polar alignment once after roughing it in, then over again after it was polar aligned. This allowed me to do 2 minute unguided exposures at a fairly long focal length (1480mm) f6.3 ... GOTOs were 100% spot-on.

Best single unprocessed sub here : http://deography.com/tmp/2min-unguided.jpg

Rough stack and process of 7 x 2m subs attached. Stars a little drifty but nothing that wouldn't be guided out already if I was. I will continue to hypertune the alignment though before moving onto guiding and those results.

Not bad for a hand controller alignment though, a promising start.

d

[Atmos]

Looks like it is going to do you well Dylan :)

[glend]

Dylan do you know of any sources for the pier adaptor for the CGX? I see Celestron has released a pdf file drawing of the required adaptor, but it looks very different to the CGEM adaptor sold by Altair invthe UK. Without a pier adaptor i can't see a CGX in my future.
General question to all readers, if i supplied a drawing can anyone make a CGX adaptor?

[dylan_odonnell]

No idea sorry. I think I will go down this rabbit hole soon. I do note however that Richard Berry's review for Celestron.com was done with a pier! "Second, I wanted to determine how well the CGX would serve as the principal attraction of my small roll-off-roof observatory. Since the base of the equatorial head is designed to drop over and bolt to a 6½-inch O.D. steel pipe, the CGX comes ready and willing to serve atop a permanent pier in an amateur’s backyard observatory"

Sounds straightforward?

http://www.celestron.com/social/blog/cgx-review-by-richard-berry

[dylan_odonnell]

It's night #2 and I hope to get guiding when the stars reveal themselves shortly. I must note that today I added a guidscope and solar scope to the load, rebalanced by removing clutches and realised I lacked enough counterweights, then removed solar scope and rebalanced again. Tonight I've switched the mount on, used "Last alignment" and have done literally nothing. Told it to slew to Venus and boom... it's not dead centre but it's by the inner crosshair circle.

What a luxury! I imagine it's best practice to run All star polar align again though for any fractional slacking.

d

[dylan_odonnell]

Well conditions weren't ideal with patchy clouds and small wind gusts to throw off an otherwise decent first guiding test with the CGX.

Best 5 minute guided frame (uncalibrated) here : http://deography.com/tmp/5min-guided-uncalibrated-CGX.jpg

Unfortunately the guiding / PECPrep data is tainted by the weather, but generally the total RMS error was 0.77 when it was running well tonight.

(EDIT: screenshots removed due to errors in PHD config and weather tainting results ... more accurate one here : http://deography.com/tmp/PHG-Guiding-CGX.png )

Stack of 7 x 5m subs (mono Lum)
http://deography.com/tmp/STACK7x5m.jpg

There is a definite vertical drift between images and elongated stars in some (but not all) of the the subs which I believe is flexure related as I got this with the EQ6 too and was sometimes tamed with careful adjustment of the guidescope position. I could be wrong.

d

[Slawomir]

Congratulations Dylan, your new mount looks very good :thumbsup:

From looking at your images I feel that field curvature is now the main cause of star elongation.

Looking forward to reading more about your experiences with your new mount :)

[glend]

Well i have gone ahead and bought Bintel's last in stock CGX. So a new adventure begins. I will need to sell my belt drive NEQ6 now to lessen the financial pain. I had a read through Richard Berry's review where he discussed pier mount of the CGX. I need to find an Australian machinist who can fabricate the adaptor, as there is none on the market yet, so if you know of one let me know.

[toc]

Got one as well :rofl: Hopefully it will work fine out of the box, and there will be no need to 'hypertune' it ;)

[dylan_odonnell]

After reviewing my PHD settings which had some errors, those last results are not accurate. I will edit the post to remove them. Here is a screenshot of tonights guiding although still battling conditions with high cloud and wind gusts.

d

[Slawomir]

Dylan, from the screen shot I see that you are using very short exposures for guiding (0.2s) and this most likely causes RA corrections to alternate in both directions. Also, you are guiding on a very bright star that has a clipped profile and is close to another star - not ideal for guiding IMO.

Unless you have a reason not to, I suggest trying to guide with at least 1-2 sec exposures and on a medium bright star that does not saturate pixels in your guide camera.

Please keep us updated :)

[Camelopardalis]

...and use a guide graph scale of, say, around 2" ;)

[glend]

EDIT:

Don from Bintel has fixed the 'wrong receipt' mix up i posted yesterday. Thanks for the quick action Don.

Original post:

I received my CGX today and received a receipt inside the box which was for another buyer. I suggest all local CGX buyers check their receipts. I have emailed Bintel to get this sorted out and send me the correct receipt for my purchase.....

And Dylan it looks like they had more than three mounts.

[toc]

Well it looks like TNT have lost part of my CGX :mad2: Unless there is a miracle I wont be getting it today, so will have to wait until next week at the earliest. Unbelievably annoying! :mad:

[glend]

I have found a pier adaptor for the CGX. TPI Astro makes one, in fact now they are making two types, after discussions today with David Yates of TPI.

Tim i hope your mount turned up.

[toc]

No it did not. :mad2: No ETA when it will turn up, and no return calls or comms from TNT to let me know the situation. Based on the many damming on line comments on the company and how they deal with customers, I am kissing it goodbye really. Just hope Bintel will offer a refund :shrug: - ok might be being a little melodramatic, but I am not feeling good about the situation.

Edit - So it appears that the packages have been packed on two separate delivery runs for some reason. I will just have to wait until the second one turns up. :sadeyes:

[Wombat]

Hello everone, I received my cgx mount from bintel on friday, the only problem was the mount itself arrived without the tripod.
Will now have to wait until tuesday or wednesday for the tripod to turn up.
TNT says that the packages some how got split up.
Here's hoping that tuesday it will arrive, was hoping to get it up and running on the weekend.
Weather has been very cloudy anyway.
Cheers,

[glend]

Sorry to hear that Wayne, that and the receipt mix up does not inspire confidence in the supply chain. However, at least Don quickly sorted out the receipts. It seems i was lucky that both my boxes arrived together but that might be due to my closeness to the TNT distribution centre with likely one truck delivery. Hope you and TOC get your second boxes asap.

I tried to setup and test my CGX last night but the cloud returned. Its sitting on the tripod inside the observatory at the moment waiting for a clear night. Loaded up the SN7 software that Celestron provided. Trying to get it to control the mount now, you will need ASCOM Platform loaded to use it. Not really a fan of SN7 so far. I am waiting on my new Nexus-S control cable from Serge (Astro Devices); which will allow me to drive the CGX with Sky Safari Pro on my tablet.

[toc]

God that is unbelievable. :eyepop: Tells me that there is a systemic issue with their loading procedures and check-offs they need to resolve.

For some light reading, head on over to 'productreview.com.au', search for 'tnt' ;) Mistakes happen I guess, but it is pretty damning.

I hope Bintel consider using a different courier company at some stage.

Edit - at least you got some explanation - I have had no one from TNT contact me, despite me contacting them via email, direct phone twice, AND facebook. Each time I was told that someone will contact me, but they never do. In my job this would be a serious arse kicking offence. I really only got some comfort from Don at Bintel who let me know that the shipment must have been split up, and that it can happen a bit when it is busy.

[glend]

I suggest we establish a CGX Test thread here on IIS. Not to minimise Dylan's initial testing, but it would be good to get a diverse group going on exploring the mounts capabilities with a variety of setups. For anyone following the CN CGX threads, including the locked one, it is clear that not much real controlled testing has taken place, there was no Beta Testing like that conducted on the ZWO ASI1600MM camera earlier in 2016, and odd ball configurations and lack of baselining performance are damaging.
I am putting mine on a pier in my observatory, so that removes the tripod from the equation. I will be doing, in coming weeks, some comparative imaging, on targets recently completed with my pier mounted belt drive NEQ6 Pro.

[traveller]

Thanks glen. I will be watching your reports with interest.
Bo

[Camelopardalis]

Surely you didn't all expect to be able to buy a shiny new mount and not antagonise the cloud gods :screwy: :lol: :lol:

[toc]

Mount has finally arrived. Unboxing after Bacon and Eggs :)

[traveller]

Looking forward to your review Tim. The weather is finally clearing up in Melbourne...
Bo

[toc]

Got it all setup - so far I am very impressed. I am no stranger to the Celestron hand control because I also own a CGEM, but It is one of the best things about having a Celestron mount IMO.

[Wombat]

Picked up the tripod from the tnt depot today, glad they found it.
Because of my work hours will be setting up the cgx on the weekend and if the weather gods are good will polar align and do some test shots with dslr.
Cheers,

[dylan_odonnell]

Back from a short hiatus away from keyboard (holidays!) and I gotta say.. loving the CGX! I'll post more thoughts when I'm not at work. I can verify that the previous good guiding I was getting with 0.2" exposures is just as good with 1 and 2.5s exposures .. so the data holds.

I'm imaging with an 11" RASA now so I'm less concerned about the guiding as it's quite wide, but attaching image of work in progress. The stars aren't perfectly round but this is due to flexure, collimation and seeing... I can confidently say the mount is now something I can ignore !

7 x 5m guided with CGX / 11" RASA / QHY12 / Baader f2 Ha filter

Sorry to hear about the TNT problems too.. glad you guys got the mount and looking forward to your results also!

d