Solved Anbody used the M-Zero with a heavy OTA?

Hi Stefano,

You and I talked quite a bit about this over email when I owned the 8RC. There were likely some problems on my end- it was a particularly windy season, my scope may not have been perfectly collimated, and my OAG had some problems. I still think the 8RC is not an ideal setup for the M-Zero because of the weight and long backfocus. An EdgeHD 8 would probably be better because of the lighter weight and shorter backfocus, but I have not seen any images taken with it on the M-Zero. I've also seen a configuration with a 6" Newtonian which looked like it worked well.

Dan

Hello, I am Michael who has captured the images of M51, M53 and M101 with M-Zero and C8 Edge HD, which Stefano recently posted in the user gallery (by the way, something with the labeling of the images went wrong, please swap the labels of M51 and M101).
Some additional information which may be helpful: The polar alignment was done with a Polemaster. The precise alignment seems to be very helpful. I did some imaging from my apartments south windows without view of Polaris for polar alignment using PHD2 drift alignment, but never reached the same guiding performance.
Let me know if you need any specific information about my setup. CS, Michael

Hi Michael,

That is a neat setup and you captured some good pictures. I'm surprised you were able to balance the C8 with just a guidescope and the one small Avalon counterweight.

I should also note again that I have the old M-Zero which I bought used. It does not have the higher quality motors that Avalon added later.