Sky-Watcher EQ6-R – Fully Computerized GoTo German Equatorial Telescope Mount – Belt-driven, Motorized, Computerized Hand Controller with 42,900+ Celestial Object Database

I have been dying to get a quality go-to mount for astrophotography and have been eyeing this one for a few years now. I was beyond happy to see it on here with Amazon's financing options which for me was better than buying from more specialized dealers. My packages (it comes in two boxes... one for the mount and the other for the tripod) both arrived together and in good condition. In other reviews here on Amazon people described only getting one of the two packages, but that is pretty common no matter who is selling this mount it seems. Regardless, I was happy when I saw the delivery man pull two boxes out of the van (I admit I was watching out my front window for the delivery driver like a kid looking for Santa at Christmas). Once unboxed, everything was easy to put together. Instead of the hand controller, I use my cheap $150 laptop to control the mount with EQMOD, Stellarium, and PHD Guiding (with a guide camera) via an ethernet to USB cable. At some point I will probably upgrade to the ZWO ASIAIR Plus. The EQ6-R Pro is a well known mount with plenty of in-depth reviews on YouTube along with tutorial videos. This is a great go-to mount for its price, payload capacity, durability, and tracking accuracy. In fact, it is probably the best in its class. When properly polar-aligned, and with the use of a guide camera, achieving sub-arcsecond accuracy is easy as long as the payload is within limits. The general rule of thumb for most astrophotography go-to mounts is not to go more than 50-75% of the maximum payload rating. As long as your payload does not weigh more than that, you cannot go wrong buying this mount and it will serve you well for years. I really love the fact this mount has an encoder built in and I can upload my PEC (periodic error correction) information right into the mount (PPEC)... for those who do not know what that means, it means the mount can permanently remember where/when to make certain tracking adjustments and adjust before they happen. (This makes tracking even more accurate) I used PHD Guiding to setup PPEC. There are not a lot of complaints about this model in general. The few common ones generally revolve around the "stiction" from the thick globs of grease used to lubricate the bearings and worm drives. One can feel this when balancing the equipment during setup. There are a number of online tutorials on how to "hypertune" the mount by cleaning off the old grease and applying a better quality lubricant, though, doing so will negate the warranty and are for more advanced users. Another common complaint is that the alt-az screws at the base of the mount that help proper polar alignment can feel awkward and not very smooth, but in the end they do their job. And lastly, for those who will be using this mount in super cold environments and use the hand controller, the LCD display on the controller will stop working if the temperatures fall too low. This is a common problem with telescope hand controllers, though some more expensive mounts do have a heating mechanism behind their controllers to keep the LCD screen working and not freezing. I hope this review helps. Like I said, there are plenty of reviews and tutorials on YouTube on this mount and all it has to offer. Clear Skies!

I’ve had this mount for over a year. It’s perfect! It achieves less than .5 arc seconds guiding accuracy. I love it!

I tried twice to get it from this seller, but both times, I only received the box with the tripod, while the boxes containing the mount were claimed to be lost in transit. Amazon customer service was helpful, but I ended up purchasing from somewhere else.

I had started to do astrophotography in 2022. I started by purchasing the iExos-100 PMC-8 through Explore Scientific. It works, it's fine for what it does, but has an extremely low weight capacity, the gears tend to bind, and there's not a lot of info on how to get it to work with some software. Many users on YouTube seem to have the EQ6R-Pro and were taking beautiful pictures with them, so I decided to take the plunge. This is an entry-level mount...and believe me, this is the one to start with. If you want to do astrophotography, your biggest investment is the mount and you will do fine with this one. The slewing is whisper quiet and immediate; I've not had any backlash at all. You will want to purchase a power adapter to go from the 12v DC to AC, but this is not mandatory (many/most powerstations will have the proper power port). The included handcontrol is very responsive (though setting it up for visual can be a bit tricky) and the mount has an ST4 autoguide port (I don't use this as I run my guide camera through my PC) and a USB connection. The payload of 44 pounds is well above what I currently have, so there is room to breathe (it would appear the limit will be an 8" imaging Newtonian) with a Vixen and Losmandy style mounting bracket. The tripod has 2" legs and is rock solid. The mount is easy to set up and teardown...though with the weight, portability isn't its main selling point. If being used for astrophotography, the mount will need to be set up with your control PC to be used in whatever your control software is (I currently use NINA). This necessitates downloading of ASCOM drivers and EQMOD (well, for PC, at least; I'm unsure for those that use Raspberry PI or ASIAIR). Thankfully, there are a myriad of resources online that make this a breeze. If you are wanting to take pictures of the sky, this is where to start.

I received my EQ6-R three days ago, along with a brand new 155Wh lithium 12V battery to power it. The mount seemed to work ok, but on several occasions while executing a goto command the mount would 'stall' while making a very loud noise. After that the goto alignment was completely off. This happened several times and I thought the mount was defective. The problem turned out to be the battery. This mount will not slew correctly if the voltage drops near or below 11 volts, which is what was happening. A new sealed lead acid battery has solved the issue as the voltage on an SLA is closer to 13 volts. Now that I have a correctly functioning mount I will to some real testing and then update this review. Edit: Having gained some experience with the mount in the field I am upping my initial rating from 4 to 5 stars. This is a very solid and stable mount capable of very accurate guiding. The only drawback is it is heavy, so if you are planning to use this mount at a remote site be sure you are prepared to deal with the weight. You will not find a better astro photography mount for under $2500. I use mine with a C11, which most 'experts' would not recommend. The EQ6-R is more than up to the task.

I bought this mount so I could drive to dark sites and use 8" imaging OTAs. It's a little heavy at about 40lbs for just the head, but definitely manageable. And the handle really shows it's strength as a travel mount. It doesn't come with a case for the head or the tripod, so if you're driving around with this you'll definitely want one. I found the Pelican 1600 to be a great fit for the head, and tripod bags are pretty cheap. You'll want to carry the counterweights separately because they add another 22 lbs together, and you need both for 8" OTAs. Polar alignment is easy enough, but the pattern in the finder scope isn't oriented vertically unless I rotate the R.A. axis to some weird angle. Overall the mount is quiet, study, and accurate. It's probably the best deal in this weight class.

There is a happy end :). I ordered it and it never arrived, contacted Amazon and they made a new order of the same item. the second one arrived within 3 days. Woks great as expected!. do not use USPS as shipping!!!!! only Amazon. contact Amazon or the seller before ordering. use Amazon delivery only!. USPS lost my package after a week in transit, Amazon delivered. Great product, can be found a bit cheaper off Amazon but the peace of mind i get with amazon is worth the extra 100$ to me. the model is with the usb port even though the listing is without.

We decided to try a EQ6R-pro, we run Celestron, Ioptron & Losmandy mounts for our stargazing, astrophotography and outreach programs. We are expanding and need to bring in some new mounts, availability is very scarce because of (you guessed it) Covid. A few fellow astronomers use the EQ6 and say overall it is not a bad mount. Well not being a bad mount does not mean it is a good mount. It is somewhere between a CG5 and AVX. Quality control is poor at it's best, there is no mention of needing a polar align app, no mention of having to reset clock, date in the hand controller every time you power up, hand controller buttons are not backlit and there is no battery for memory in the controller. One would expect a 2021 mount to be a little more user friendly than a 20 yo CG5. Skytracker support is uncaring and condescending when questioned about polar scope reticles being off 10 degrees from cw shaft. Their answer is just rotate RA axis to make them vertical, a completely unneeded step when just making them match the cw shaft in home position would eliminate this, secondly having to use an app for more accurate location of Polaris, really, is the HC that inaccurate and untrustworthy. Observing, Astrophotography is a fun hobby but when you make it a chore no one is going to want to waste their time. Do yourself a favor save up for a more reputable mount, one with support and quality control, Ioptron has been great to us, as well as software Bisque and Losmandy but the latter 2 are more for advanced astronomers and are not suited well to entry level which is what most of our guests that we introduce to the age old hobby are. The mount is just not user friendly compared to others, it is set up the same as an AVX at 50% more cost and only 25% more payload, it is far heavier and less portable than an AVX and for that matter a Ioptron CEM60 which has 50% more payload capacity and weighs 12 lbs less. Do yourself a favor and do not buy this mount, it will only eat up more of your time and make a fun hobby aggravating.

La montura es muy buena, consideren que es bastante pesada, pero es una montura de bastante calidad.

simplemente llegó incompleto, faltó el tripode asi como va a funcionar, lo intente de muchas formas de arreglarlo con amazon pero su respuesta mas facil es devuelvelo. lo devolví. :(