It was never my intention to buy this mount, however!
After installing the GM2000, it was setup side-by-side in the observatory with my ‘old’ EQ8. And that basically changed my mind on how a mount should behave. The GM2000 worked like a dream; silent, fully vibration-free, accurate, no guiding, with a 50kg load capacity.
The EQ8 was doing fine, no issues whatsoever with it. But then came this opportunity to buy a used GM1000 from a German amateur, who was upgrading to a GM2000.
I did not blink an eye and jumped in the car to a rendez-vous point in Germany.
The GM1000HPS has all 10 Micron advantages but in a semi-portable package. It now carries adual saddle plate with a 180mm Maksutov and a 76 mm F4,5 widefield APO.
The only reason, not to take it on a imaging trip to the Ardennes or Grandpre, is that once everything is well balanced, and sky models are done, you want to leave it as is.
Main differences with the EQ8 are:
- general built quality and finishing is from another category
- accuracy increase, no guiding needed
- sky model abilities
- silent drive
- lifetime expectancy
- less load capacity (28kgs instead of 50kg)
- Double or triple the price depending on used/new/options etc