Bart,

Thanks a lot for this sweet feedback. I agree for pictures, should you have time to take some someday.

Regards

>>> All iOptron mounts work fine with INDI.


Good to read, thanks! Quoting the driver page: "The mount must be aligned first before establishing connection with INDI".

Does that mean that the star alignment must be done on the handset before using KStars / Ekos? If so, the sync functionality from KStars is not so useful, I guess, right?

Cheers, men!

I've never done a star alignment in my life, and the mount has always worked perfectly
Lately I've been having small issues with guiding, but those are completely unrelated to INDI/kstars/etc.

Sweet, Paolo! Just to be sure: you're used to doing polar align, right?

Yes, I do PA every time, since I setup and tear down every session ! Most of the time I do it with ipolar though. I find ipolar (way) faster and more precise than Ekos' PA routine. But that is just my preference

Thanks Paolo, this is so kind of you to provide me with such useful info.

 

It's an old hex key thinned down, with a grippy surface, that could also be simply heat-shrink tube.
 
Here is my setup.
The scope is a 190 mm Maksutov Newton.
You can see a black (adjustable) ring above the CW's, this is for really quick setting up. I don't need to balance anymore.
The usb is soldered in, so no connection issues anymore.
You can make 'tool free' screws of the two screws in the back, for tightening the Azimuth adjustment.

Bart,

Nice pictures!

Sorry for the noob question, but : what does CW stand for, please? A way not to be forced to balance again and again? Can you please elaborate?

Counter Weights.
The (three) black masses on the bar.
Yes, I just use this little black ring as a reference to slide the counter weights against and it's always in balance, once adjusted. Dec is in balance and has a reference position on the Losmandy dovetail plate to slide against.

Indeed... You rock, Bart! If you have any more tinkering like these, feel free to share them with me, please. I should receive my mount in one month or so, so if I have life-sweetening ideas of this kind, I'll be the happiest guy from my block.

Bart,

You said:

>>> Dec is in balance and has a reference position on the Losmandy dovetail plate to slide against.

How can you be sure that your OTA is in the right position on the dovetail plate? On my present mount, I never manage to put the OTA at the same position, so I must balance each and every time I use it. Do you mean that the iOpton mount has a reference position, or do you mean that you manage somehow to always put the OTA at the same position. If so, how?

Like so:


And you know, just have fun figuring out your setup, everyone's different and that's really nice I think. Lots of creative solutions to comparable 'problems'.
Enjoy the mount!