Comments on: iOptron SmartStar Goto AltAz Mount: First Impressions

By: Dr. Bill Davis

Dr. Bill Davis — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 19:18:35 +0000

My kids bought me the mount as an early Christmas gift. I holds my Vixen 80SS fine.

Looks to be well made and powerful enough to cruse along with the scope on board.

Quite pleased as we also have meade and celestron goto’s at our observatory.

By: Tony

Tony — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 10:34:13 +0000

Hi Chris,

Yes, it works great now. As I mentioned in the post, I had the wrong timezone entered in the keypad. The mount was thinking I was 7 hours ahead of GMT instead of behind.

Once I entered the correct zone, it slews right to the sun.

Nice mount!

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:05:41 +0000

here is a star list on the website

http://www.ioptron.com/support.aspx?catalog=15

By pressing the “ENTER” key, my unit beeps shows the coord and takes me to the sun without any problems. Does it work for you now?

By: Billh

Billh — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 01:29:32 +0000

I also purchased this mount to use with my ETX90RA. Celestron 80WF and my Orion StarBlast. The mount is very strudy after adding a 1/4″ spacer to raise the spreader. It is smooth and noiseless. It came with the 8403 controller which will not interface with any telescope program like the Sky or Sky Map Pro. For that one needs either 8401 or 8402 comtrollers.
The databases of the 8403 are not easily searchable as they are ID# related. The only useable database is the Messier one. There is no
published listing showing the association between ID# and object. The manual needs alot of work to make the unit feasible for use by
beginning astromers. STILL WITH ALL THIS THE UNIT IS A GOOD BUY. BTW:No A/C power supply was recieved with the unit.

By: Edhiker

Edhiker — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 18:02:57 +0000

Just got my S&T – the most interesting ad was for this item.

My remaining questions are:
1- How noisy is the drive?
2- How to get a system that “remembers time/date etc so it is ready to use after just a few seconds” Clocks are real cheap!
3- Can this $200 system be run by RS232 from Win98 and planetarium program.
4- typ pointing accuracy.
5- clutch on axis, both
6- one or 2 yr warr. (manual refers to 2yr)

Some tracks from the last 1/2 hour –

Ioptron Drive – about Company http://www.ioptron.com/News.html
– mount $199 http://www.ioptron.com/support.aspx?catalog=15 Manual
main http://www.ioptron.com/products.aspx?subcatalog=17
review http://www.astronomybuff.com/ioptron-smartstar-goto-altaz-mount-first-impressions/
and http://www.astronomybuff.com/my-ioptron-altaz-goto-mount-arrived-today/
info https://www.ioptron.com/merchantmanager/product_info.php?cPath=1_7&products_id=5
CloudyNights board about http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:dKikLS7hv8sJ:www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1927801/Main/1419759+iOptron+mount+rerview&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us
” remembers time/date etc so it is ready to use after just a few seconds.” other product”
The motors are screeching noisy. http://www.astromart.com/forums/viewpost.asp?forum_post_id=552529&poll_id=&news_id=&page=

By: Oh How I Wish For Solar Maximum

Oh How I Wish For Solar Maximum — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 06:15:20 +0000

[...] love my Coronado PST Halpha telescope. I also love my new iOptron mount that guides it. Now I wish the Sun would cooperate and give me something a little more interesting to look [...]