04.05.2024

Hey guys in order to do this review for. the cg4 I want to show you this eq1. which is really common with any of the. German equatorial budget telescopes and. it's probably the most widely sold. and more people are familiar with it. than uh anything else. and that's part of my review I would. like to compare and contrast that with. the cg4. and uh at some point if that's what you. own then. you're more than likely going to want to. upgrade but if you don't really want to. spend a whole lot of money then the cg4. is a good option um. beyond that you're getting computerized. and you're uh you're starting to get way. up there in price and the cg4 runs. roughly around three hundred dollars. and you can motorize it for uh just over. a hundred which is uh. fairly budget priced and it's an. excellent item so let's get into talking.

About that. okay for starters you notice that the. legs on this thing are over an inch and. three quarters in diameter really Stout. the hinges are metal. and you see this little post right here. on the North facing leg that's important. and we'll get back to that. you see it's a. bolts up through the bottom to the uh to. the mount. there's a place for the tray and the. spreader bar. and for those guys that uh have piers. and that sort of thing I'll give you a. few measurements here to look at that'll. help you uh. decide if if it'll work for your setup. or not. and that's the uh height with the legs. nonextended. Center to Center. roughly three feet. with the legs extended. just over four. okay fully extended looks like 44 and a. half inches. to the mount. and earlier I discussed that pin that. sticks up I want to show you what that's.

For. and you set this up here. these two bolts on the side. with the knobs. you've adjust them to. basically your asthma. to fine tune for the north Celestial. pole that's what they're for. and uh. you put a little tension on one and. release the other and you can uh you can. move the mount while it's on the tripod. without having to kick the legs around. that's really useful. so yeah that just that's there to make. real fine adjustments in uh azimuth. okay you see it's got a builtin Bubble. Level that's really handy also. you have to Fumble around with one in. the darkest is included. really easy to to use. see the spreader bar it's just a. standard Trace exact same one that comes. with a next star Mount just White. pull this cap off there's a place for a. polar finder scope. that's also really handy if you want. precise polar alignment but that's an.

Optional piece of equipment I think it's. around 40 bucks average. not too bad if you want to do uh. astrophotography that's. pretty much a standard item you have to. have. but the uh you see there's levers. instead of knobs for. locking the ra and DEC. IDE so for right Ascension and. declination. especially in the dark that's really. useful and they're the tension on them. is great. the mount itself turns really smooth. it's uh it's machine rather well to be. at the price range that it's at I'm I'm. rather impressed with that part of it. really smooth rotation. and uh. really easy to find and handle the knobs. that are here you don't have to put a. lot of tension on it to lock it when it. does lock great. and it's uh it's rated at 15 pounds. which means. scrape up the 10 pounds would be ideal. in my opinion you don't want to push it.

To the maximum limit but 15 pounds is. the rating on this uh this mount. and as you can see there's a safety. knob there also for your dovetail rail. here you can see the motors. this is the declination motor. and it has a slip clutch. so you can make fine adjustments if you. need to with it running without. interfering with it just disengage it. with that knob right there. and uh if you had your fine adjustment. arm on the other side you could. you can make adjustments without. worrying about stripping it. you can't do that for ra but you can do. it for declination which is. still a nice Plus. and I'm not sure if I mentioned it but. the uh. the aftermarket motors for this setup is. uh. a little over a hundred dollars so. that's also an additional cost. here you can see how the. right Ascension motor is hooked up it's.

On a flexible cable and it attaches. directly to the mount. there you're seeing the latitude scale. not really big but definitely usable but. you notice there's a. two locking bolts instead of one on this. setup which is really useful and for. fine tuning. it comes with two sets of weights I. forget the exact way seven and a half. and two and a half something like that. but I only need the smaller one for my. uh seven and a half pound scope. here you can see the counterweight bar. and it's uh it's longwinded as far as. the threads go which is a really good. thing. and it's uh. nice and sturdy. the weights themselves they lock really. easy. and it's got the safety pin at the. bottom of it so you don't drop nothing. on your feet or anything. really well made all metal. no plastic junk here. really good Mount really good tripod.

You can see just a Orion st80. a on it. um. camera's not attached but really easy to. balance this setup. that's just with the one weight and all. them almost all the way to the end of. the uh. kind of weight bar there. but it easily holds the. seven and a half pounds that I put on it. no problem at all. could easily do a Newtonian. around 10 pounds or. thereabouts. this is the battery pack this 4D. batteries which is a lot you're uh. they're rated at a 20 hours but I. haven't confirmed that completely yet. I've used it uh three or four nights in. a row several hours and. haven't noticed a heavy decline in the. uh. the tracking so. but here you can see you have a. eight times four times and two times. SideReel speeds. and the number eight is supposedly there. for uh. making corrections as a North and the. South polar uh.

Tracking so it basically uh runs counter. or clockwise. cg4 mount. beautiful amount excellent for uh. beginners who can afford it. and for those who want to upgrade but. not quite ready to go to the. VX mounts and the really expensive stuff. highly recommend this to to my viewers. um. I'm really impressed with how this. machine How It's Made. uh. I'm an engineer by career I look at a. lot of mechanical stuff and. I'm impressed with it. it also comes with these slow adjustment. cables knobs. and I run it through a few tests just to. see what I can do and what you're seeing. here is the number eight speed and uh. how fast it adjusts so there's a lot of. forums where people are talking about. how slow it is. it's not designed for slowing but the. fine adjustment. is relatively fast that's what you're. seeing here it's been using the.

Controller to make an adjustment and here I'm rotating uh the wheel on the camera while it's attached to the tripod and you can see how fast the vibration settles down but in the defensive amount I think a lot of that has to do with the extensions that I have on the telescope itself but very very quick subtle time from vibration and touching it here's some more uh fine adjustments while looking at the sun this is in video crop mode so high magnification for the telescope at a eight speed once you figure out you can get the mount and tripod for 300 or less if you decide to motorize it or whatever 100 and so you add the horoscope you're looking at around 450 total but that's awesome that's uh that's a good deal for this system so My overall opinion uh 10 out of 10 I would give this uh a perfect 10.

I'm at the price range. for intermediate this is where I would. put it um. I don't see much better like I said if. you decide to go eq5 and up then you're. looking at all the computerized. functions and stuff that that drive the. price way up if you want to get a really. good solid mount. at a reasonable cost and this is this is. where you should go. skywatcher also makes a good one but. that's a European product. I recommend this one to my uh American. viewers you can't go wrong with it um. there's no reason you couldn't get a. three minute exposures with careful. polar alignment and a good setup. and uh. this is one of those products that. really shines. and I'm putting this video out there to. try to encourage people to look into it. and um ask other people's opinions about. it but mine uh personally it's it's. fantastic and.

Um it's just an amazing product. you get what you pay for and in this. case uh buy it in pieces if you can't. afford it all at once. but uh definitely will make your viewing. more enjoyable and uh. you're you're for certain going to get a. whole lot better results tracking on. this than you would a standard eq1. and uh I apologize for my voice being a. little muffled I've been really sick. lately and uh. hadn't been putting many videos out but. this is one that probably a lot of. people are interested in I'm sure you've. read it and heard it other places but. more important than in telescope is to. mount. and that is a fact. you're better off spending more money on. a good amount and having a cheaper. telescope than the other way around but. this is an excellent thing uh excellent. product highly recommend it. hope you guys have a.

plenty of enjoyment out there and lots. of clear skies