Sky-Watcher EQ8-R Mount Head Only with Counterweights (S30612)

If the mount continues to work as it is now, I will be really happy with it.

I purchased the EQ8-R mount in December 2023 and now have been using it for almost 3 months. In summary, I am cautiously happy with the mount. Pros • Sales support was great from All-Star telescope. Scope was delivered on schedule to my observatory. • Mount easily handles my 70 lbs of telescope and imaging equipment (includes 88 lbs of counterweights). Slews fast, works well with plate solving in NINA. • Seems to work well to temperatures down to -10C. Haven’t tested below this. • I would consider the periodic error of the RA gear to be excellent. Tested 6 worm cycles with PemPro to measure RA tracking accuracy to 0.76 seconds RMS (without PEC). Wow! • Autoguiding keeps overall error down to around 0.6 RMS Arcseconds and is basically seeing-limited. I can now image with my C14” Schmidt reliably. Excellent. • Polar alignment was very smooth and easily done using NINA 3-star routine. • Integration with Green Swamp Server is good and works with my system well. Took some time to learn and get working right. • Auto home to reset calibration feature is welcome and necessary since clutches are weak and sometimes slip. • Good price point for a mount with these capabilities. Cons • Dec backlash is excessive for a mount in this range. Tested 2000 ms in PHD2. I consider this unacceptable, and Skywatcher should either make periodic adjustment of backlash easy to do by the user (without worrying about voiding warranty) or make the worm spring-loaded as many other mounts do. Of course, a poorly implemented, spring-loaded worm gear would be worst. This poor backlash was compensated for by the ease of polar alignment. I have achieved near perfect polar alignment and Dec corrections are rarely needed during tracking. Auto guiding is working well at this point so I will live with the Dec backlash. • No real-time clock in Synscan. Really, I guess I am just used to Celestron mounts. • Don’t like that hand controller attaches to the movable part of the mount. It would be nicer if USB, power and hand control were connected to the stationary part of the mount. However, with my set up I control from a computer through Green Swamp Server and have disconnected the hand control, don’t use it and put it away in a box. • Axis clutches are weak but functional. • Seals on both axis between the elements and gears are not the best considering the observatory environment. Gears seem exposed to elements. • Mount needs a solid power supply. My mount had moments where it refused to turn on. This is worrisome, but cycling the power switch a few times brought it back. • Older versions of the EQ8 came in a nice road case. This one comes in a cardboard box. Not an issue for my permanent installation, but the box is big and difficult to store in-case warranty work is needed. Calling this mount “observatory class” is a bit of a stretch, but it is observatory class in that it is really too heavy to be used in anything but a permanent mount situation. If the mount continues to work as it is now, I will be really happy with it. However, at $7000 this is a serious investment for me that I can’t repeat, so if long-term reliability becomes an issue (as some other users experience), I will be very disappointed. Thus, cautious optimism.