GM8 rant

I understand this mount is supposed to be one of the higher end mounts
in the astronomical community. After doing wide field astrophotography
for quite some time, I was given the opportunity to rent a GM8 along
with a small refractor for a month. My time is nearly up and I couldn't
be happier.

I couldn't spent every night working with this thing as I have to work
too, but the nights I did try to use it ended up in frustration. The
particular mount I had also came with Gemini 1 part 4. Even after
reading the 137 page manual over and over again, I still found the menu
system difficult to use to get to what I needed to. The buttons pushed
would sometimes switch and if I had used "Ra+" to access the DSO library
the first time, I might have to use "Ra-" the second. The there was
polar alignment.... forget it!!! Certainly not good enough to track
more than 30 seconds unguided. I laborously tried aligning the the
Losmandy polar scope to Polaris and the 2nd/ 3rd stars followed by the
"Polar Axis Correction" routine in the manual but tracking didn't
improve... spent at least 2 hours in the manual and menus each time
trying to get the thing aligned.

I was told that this was the mount to get if I was going to have to set
up on a regular basis, which is something I have to do. I was also told
that it was portable and easy to use. While I'll agree that it is
somewhat portable, as far as being easy to use, no way.

I had hoped to grab a few images of some prominent NGC and M objects
while the Summertime Milky Way was in place, but I spent the last three
weekends just trying to perfect the alignment on the darn GM8! I never
did reach the point where it would guide correctly and I DO find the
manual could have been better written.

If you are able to set this thing up in an hour with proper polar
alignment to take unguided imagery, I'd sure love to hear your story. I
certainly didn't and can't wait to return this thing tomorrow. Oh, one
person did suggest autoguiding, but if I'm already having trouble
aligning and getting unguided shots, how would shelling out $300+ on an
autoguiding set up make any difference? And no one I know of rents such
an accessory either.

You are welcome to the GM8, hope it works for you and I'm sure it does
in permanent set ups, but no good for those temporary users.

Sam