Specifically, I didn’t get to do something I’d really been
looking forward to, getting my Losmandy GM811G and my six inch
refractor, Big Ethelout into the backyard for a
tour of spring deep sky wonders, which will soon be on the wane. Well, if I
can’t use the GM811, at least I can talk about it. For such a nice and
capable GEM, I don’t hear much discussion of it, and maybe I can help rectify
that. If nothing else, this one fulfills my vow of not missing a month posting
a new article to the AstroBlog, even if said article is a short one.
“But wut in
pea-turkey is a GM-811, Unk? Wut is one, huh?” That’s easy enough. I think
most working amateur astronomers know about the Losmandy (Hollywood General
Machining) G-11. It’s a medium GEM that has been around for decades,
including being sold with a Celestron nametag on it once in a while. It’s a
reliable general-use mount that is a known quantity.
The G11 is a well-respected and reasonably priced mount, but some,
like your decrepit, old Uncle would have trouble handling the hefty G11, not to
mention big sister, the Losmandy Titan. There’s the smaller GM-8, but that doesn’t help those of us who need
more payload capacity than is offered by the littlest Losmandy. Scott
Losmandy and his colleagues had an idea…What if their mounts could be mixed
and matched? As in, produce a mount that uses the RA assembly of the
G11, but the declination assembly of the GM-8. And one with the RA of a Titan
and the dec of a G11. The mix and match mounts provide extra payload thanks to
the bigger RA assemblies, but keep the weight down.
So how did Unk wind up with one? Round about a dozen
years back, he was tooling along happily with his Atlas EQ-6 and Celestron Advanced VX GEMs, and
his beloved fork mount NexStar 11 GPS, Big Bertha. Getting a little older
was what happened, mostly. I suddenly found I could no longer safely lift the NexStar
11 onto her tripod. Oh, I still did it, but I felt nervous about it. At that time,
I really wanted to continue using a C11—or thought I did—and it ‘peared to me
the way out was to defork the OTA and put it on a GEM.
Unk being Unk, he didn’t want to spend much/any money on a
new mount and wondered if the Orion Atlas would suffice. After a few weeks of thinking, asking, and
reading, I reluctantly ruled that a “no.” The small counterweight bar and Vixen
saddle argued against it. A 9.25 is really the upper limit for an EQ-6, though
some have exceeded that. Also, I never got friendly with the SynScan HC. It
just never seemed as accurate goto-wise as my Celestron NexStar hand paddles.
Sure, the use of the EQMOD software corrected
the SynScan faux pas, but I was never real comfortable with that, either. What I
wanted, I decided, was a GEM mount that would handle a C11, one equipped with
the familiar and accurate NexStar HC.
There was no mystery as to which mount that should be. It
had been obvious for a long while that I should not have bought the EQ-6. What I shoulda done was wait a few months for the Celestron NexStar CGEM, which I knew would soon be released. But I got new GEM fever and bought the Atlas. I regretted that
decision for years. So, I sold the Atlas—which was a good mount, really, just not the mount for me—and
bought, yep, a CGEM, which to avoid offending my penny-pinching personality, I
financed in part by the sale of the Atlas and the NexStar 11 GPS fork mount and
case.
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| CGEM and C11: That's a lot of telescope, paw-paw. |
The problem? Damned, old Father Time (and a spate of
rather serious back problems). That rascal had made the CGEM and the C11 both
heavier and heavier. Honestly, I was back to where I had been with Bertha on
her fork mount. To be honest, I knew the 11 and CGEM were too much from the day
the big Celestron mount came to Chaos Manor South.
I practiced the art of denial for a couple of years before giving-in to the
obvious. Both mount and scope were way too much for me, the situation would not
improve, and both had to go.
So, I made a hard choice: To sell the C11, which was the SCT
I had honestly loved more than any other I’ve used over the last half century.
Luckily, I was able to send her to a good home where I knew she’d be very well
taken care of and used. Likewise, the CGEM went to a new owner. The good part
was I really hadn’t had enough time with the mount to get attached to it. I’d
think about setting it up, even with a C8 instead of a C11, and usually find
reasons I just had to use the Celestron Advanced VX mount instead. So, there I
was. C11-less, with my workhorse mount being the AVX.
So, what would I do? What would I do?Or…why do
anything? I had a nice Edge C8 and a nice AVX. Both worked fine. But the
lack of a larger mount began to eat away at me. While this was toward the end
of my time as a semi-serious astrophotographer, I didn’t realize that at the time.
I wanted more payload and better guiding for the very manageable 5-inch APO
Veronica Lodge, who’d replaced the C11. Mostly, though, I think I just
wanted to have one really nice mount. Something nicer than the Chinese GEMs
that had been my bread and butter for years.
But what? I
immediately ruled out Astro-Physics or an exotic European mount. I was never an
“8 hours of exposure” kinda guy, and it was clear even my relaxed take on
imaging with a DSLR was slowing down. So, if I wasn’t going for the high-priced
spread, and I was done with the Chinese mounts, then what? Actually, I did
consider an iOptron CEM60, but for various reasons, not just that it was of
Chinese manufacture, I decided against it. That left Losmandy, and their new
mount that had caught my eye, the GM811G.
Next up? Unk did some digging. What I found out about
the 811 was encouraging. As above, it consisted of the big G11 RA axis, and the
GM-8 declination assembly. All metal construction. Mucho stainless steel. Worm
gears on both axes, not just on the RA axis as I’d been accustomed to with my
Chinese mounts. Annnd…most of all, maybe, a payload for imaging of 50 pounds despite the GEM head only weighing 27 pounds.
Would I ever again put anything approaching a load like that on a mount either
for imaging or visual? Unlikely, but overkill is good.
As for the system itself? It’s not too much different from
those we’ve been accustomed to. There’s a hand control, which is connected to a
computer that bolts onto the tripod. Different alignment options are available,
including the ability to build models with multiple stars on both sides of the
Meridian, something my beloved NexStar systems lacked.
The Gemini HC is quite something. On one side of the hand
control are normal tactile pushbuttons for slewing the mount, the other side is,
yeah, quite something. It’s a full color touchscreen. Objects? Gemini falls
behind Celestron and Meade with 40,000, and that gave me pause. However,
realistically, how many more would I really need? You can enter RA and dec
values and go anywhere you want. Or send the mount to any object in the sky
with a PC.
And how about a PC? The Gemini computer is incredibly
flexible if you want to use a laptop in the field with the mount. You can
connect via good, old serial, something I’d really gotten tired of on the
Celestron mounts. Or you can use a USB cable. Or—get this—you can control the
mount over Ethernet. That would turn out to be my usual choice. No fooling with
com ports, no worrying about a too-long USB cable.
So… I decided I was gonna do it, buy me a Losmandy. I
wondered, however, whether I should order directly from the company or use a
dealer. I decided to call Losmandy and find out. I spoke to the famous Miss
Tanya and asked if I ordered direct, how long the wait would be (I’d gathered from dealer websites that it
could be weeks). She told me to hang on and she’d ask
Scott. She was back on in a minute, “Scott says if you order now, it will
ship this afternoon.” You can bet I whipped out my credit card. In addition
to the GM811G Gemini, I ordered an AC power supply and the lightweight field
tripod (no way I wanted to carry around the big G11 tripod). I did not
order the polar alignment scope. I’ve always hated those things and by this
time had progressed to using Sharpcap for polar alignment.
I was in an agony of anticipation, natch, but in just a few
days some big boxes labeled “Hollywood General Machining” were on the Chaos
Manor doorstep. You can read all the unboxin’ stuff here
(and even watch a little video), but it went very smoothly indeed. Then I
encountered a problem. The mount tended to experience “motor stalls” when
slewing in dec to a position near the horizon. A quick call to Tanya told me
what to do: Many mounts need an initial
gear adjustment depending on the nature of your payload—like my 6-inch refractor.
The procedure has a webpage at the Losmandy site, took only a few minutes, and
I never got a stall again with any telescope I’ve used on the 811.
From the evening of the day the Losmandy arrived, it’s
performed splendidly in the field—I looked on the fact the sky didn’t cloud-over
the minute I received the new GEM as a good omen. As long as I didn’t try to carry
the mount head with its BIG counterweight bar in place, setting the Losmandy up
was no problem for my poor back. The lightweight field tripod? It was very
steady even with my 6-inch refractor onboard, and I sure was glad I’d eschewed that
G11 tripod.
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| Gemini 2 touchscreen HC. |
It's been a long time, yeah, since I imaged with the
mount. In fact, I haven’t even used it for visual in a while, about five
years as a matter of fact (ulp). But why? The near-fatal accident I suffered in
early 2019 put an end to my observing for almost a year. When I was (more or
less) back setting up scopes in the backyard? The aftereffects, particularly
with my right arm, which still doesn’t have much strength, discouraged me from
using any but the smallest and lightest instruments. Five years ago, just to
say I could, I got the mount assembled but almost dropped the 6-inch refractor in the process of getting it into the mount’s saddle, which further discouraged me.
Now? Well, campers, I’m five years older, but I feel good.
I have a better idea now of what I can lift safely and how to lift it. I have
every intention of cruising the deep sky with Big Ethel and the Losmandy. As
soon as the sky clears. Whenever that is…