Hopefully some of the Losmandy users will chime in but here’s what I thought of
them last year when I was looking for a new mount.
From what I hear, they’re pretty rock solid mounts with a nice mechanical
finish. Fairly straight forward, kind of old school, in design but a
“machinist’s” mount. They used to have the high end enthusiast niche pretty
much to themselves, between the low end mass market mounts and the premium
mounts such as the APs and Paramounts. Their design hasn’t changed much over
the years, which is both a good thing and a bad thing at the same time. Two
things were the deciding factor in my decision to not purchase one: 1) the
controller left me concerned and 2) newer, cheaper competitors had come on the
market.
The controller for the Losmandy’s appears to be made by a third party as an
add-on. It appeared that the SW was being done by a single guy. The controller
was showing its age from a technological perspective. And being reliant one guy
to provide the SW support for a multi thousand dollar purchase made me nervous.
And about that time, rumor had it that he passed away, throwing more
uncertainty into the equation.
And in the meantime, iOptron and Celestron had come out with new mounts for the
enthusiast with more of an eye towards astrophotography. In both cases, their
new mounts were less expensive (cost is a factor to me!) by a thousand dollars
or more depending on the models.
You should be aware that my decision process was driven by my expected use. I
THINK I still own an eye piece on a shelf somewhere. I used it when I first got
started to align the guide scope with the OTA. Never have used it since! I’m
strictly a astrophotography user so my mount needed to support that. I try to
touch the mount as little as possible, relying on technology to operate it.
Often “remotely” from my home office, only out by the mount when doing a polar
alignment or trouble shooting an issue. (That being said, I do miss sitting by
the scope in the middle of the night enjoying the stars and the quiet. When the
weather is nice and the mosquitoes aren’t eating me alive!)
So that was my thinking. But there are lots of ways to go.
Mike McDonald
mikemac@xxxxxxxxxxx
On Apr 26, 2020, at 10:05 PM, Paul <emailpa@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Lots of good advice in this thread. The challenge and frustration of AP is
apparent.
Various mounts have been mentioned but not Losmandy. Is it not a quality
mount?
