The MX showed up today, and I am off to the observatory to install it.
OK, here we go with issues:
1) The plate I had made to receive the mount on my pier doesn’t fit. I hd specified within 0.0001 inches tolerance; the bolt holes are about 1/16 inch off.
To get it to work, I put in 1/4-20 screws. Oops, I don’t have washers. Off to the store for washers. The mount now looks nice and level on the bubble mount. The bottom washers barely fit – they are up against the pier collar.
2) rotated the Versa plate. Odd that you can only use 4 of the bolts to remount it. Unclear what I am supposed to do with the wiring – I just ran it outside the head to the instrument panel. They provide a bunch of wrenches, but not one of a size to fit the Varsa plate.
3) No serial numbers? The manual says the serial numbers for the software are on the packing slip. No numbers are on the slip. There is a serial for the mount itself on the outside of the main box. Maybe that is supposed to get the numbers from the Bisque site or something?
Called OPT, they say call Bisque. Bisque is closed:(
4) through the mount cabling – you have to be kidding. I think one might be able to run raw wires through there, but all my cables have connectors on them. There is no way a connector is going through that tiny area. Looks like my wires will hang off the mount like they always have off the G11.
5) This is a problem – it turns out the two counterweights, all the way down the shaft, do not counterbalance my OTA. I have an 11″ Edge and 2 small refractors, with ST2000XM, Canon EOS, and Starfish cameras. These apparently weigh too much – I will need to either a) figure out how to add more weights, b) but a $250 counterweight, or c) buy the shaft extension $150. Irritating, and is going to hold off doing anything until I can get the extra weight on there.