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I've had the G11G for about a year now.? Got it mainly for back yard imaging.? ?Last weekend the club had an outreach event so we brought the G11G and dusted off our old C11 and used it to share some views with the public.? A few observations:

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- It handles the C11 way better than the EQ-G mount I bought the scope with.? That is the predecessor to the current Eq6 class mounts.? I got a lot of good use out of that mount, but this one was much more confident with that load.?

- Go-tos were much more accurrate, once I got a model built.? ? There was nothing that was outside of the eyepeice that had about a half degree field of view.?

- Model building for the first time was...interesting.? ?I should have read up on it.? It took me about 4 tries to get it to work.? The first one everything was way off the initial go-to, and slewing over before syncing still resulted in a bad model.? The second time, for some reason still unkown to me, it selected 3 stars all i Cassiopea.? I knew that wasn't going to work.? It was after that time that I figured out I still had the Lat/Long from our recent trip to an out of state star party.? I fixed that, and it fixed the initial go-to pretty well.? Then on the next try I figured out I could hit the East or West button again before go-to and it would select a different star to go to.? ?That was when I nailed a good alignment - I don't have a ton of star names memorized so I could pick ones easy for me to find!? ?3 stars on each side.? ?Did a great job all night after that.?

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I really enjoyed it for visual use.? Been happy with the imaging, though I need to improve guiding a bit for my 130mm refractor.? ?But I think its just a matter of finding the time to mess with some settings a bit.??

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Was good to be out there in visual mode!? And not pushing around a big dob, not that I'm complaining about having a nice big dob.??

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Brian

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Brian,

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The G11 was designed to carry the C11 SCTs so it should be pretty stable and even more stable with the Losmandy Folding HD (FHD) tripod. I have used the G11 with a C14 as have many others here with great success. Some of the best highest quality planetary images in the world have been taken with a G11 and C14.?

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Not sure what you are using to guide the G11 with but a 130mm should be easy to guide well unless it is a very slower OTA. The bespoke Parallax/ AT130mm f/6 SDT I own is heavy and it guided well with a laptop running PHD2 and is working just as well with an ASIAIR Plus using a piggybacked 50mm f/4 Stellarvue guide scope and an ASI290MM mini guide cam. You should see tracking error under 0.5 seconds of arc on a clear night, better even if the air is steady.?

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If you like to push the scope around get a Astro Devices Nexus DSC and the matching Losmandy encoders. This is the ultimate PUSH-TO setup with a well balanced mount. You can just free the clutches and the scope glides anywhere you push it to with 2 fingers. The Nexus DSC just makes it so much easier to find an object.? I like this way of observing so much I bought an old GM8s and added the encoders and Nexus DSC for pure visual work like at outreach and public star parties.?

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I have used the ASI Air to guide my G11G.? ?My camera is an OAG, or like one, its the 2600mc DUO.? I have never gotten better guiding than about 0.6, often ranging 0.6-0.8.? ?I've tried some various agression and min move settings, but didn't seem to have much of an impact.? I could certainly do more.? ?Your comments and others ive read here make me think I may have a mechancial issue I need to figure out to get the guiding down.? When trying to guide the C11, I could not get any guiding below about 1.5.? I think I may need more counterweight for photographic use for that though.??

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Your comment about the Nexus is an interesting one.? I have a Nexus for my Dob.? ?I assume you put the motors in sideral tracking, then just loosen the clutch, push to, tighten the clutch and it tracks from there?? ?That may be handy for quick sessions.? I've also had my eye on the Losmandy alt-az mount though....

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Brian