I have to say, thus far, I haven't had to use east-heavy guiding, though I am set up in case this becomes necessary. This was more than an axis upgrade - I changed my entire imaging setup from an AT115EDT refractor reduced to F/4.5 to C11 Edge with F/7 reducer. I'm still rewiring the observatory. Clouds have slowed everything up.?
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In the short time I've been able to use it though, the RA axis upgrade has proven to be a dream. After PEC training and PHD2 calibration, the mount guides as beautifully as I had hoped for. Over two sessions of about 3 hours each, my RMS values in relatively poor seeing were 0.34" for RA and 0.33" for Dec and 0.50" for RA and 0.42" for Dec. The second set of figures were for a DSO between 30 and 45 degrees in apparent elevation. For the first values set, it had risen above 50 degrees. I should not have been imaging on either night, but I cannot be too picky with my seeing options this winter. I've become a cheap date. My stars at 2000mm focal length (2008 according to platesolve) for subs from both imaging runs are round to the corners of my admittedly small sensor (IMX 533). These aren't as low as the numbers I've seen from the insanely expensive mount crew, but I hadn't seen anything that low in my previous experiences with any mount.?
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I guess the best review of my short experience thus far is that I typically actively check each sub and PHD2 while imaging. While imaging last night, I realized at a certain point that I had stopped obsessively checking my PHD2 guiding graph. I was doing research for cloud monitors, looking for reviews for good NINA plugins, streaming a show on Netflix as subs came in every couple of minutes.??
