Celestron CGX-L Computerized Go-To German Equatorial Head Only, 75 lb Payload Capacity 91531

The 75 pound payload capacity Celestron CGX-L is a heavy duty/high precision German equatorial head that can handle almost any reasonable telescope/imaging accessory combination with ease and accuracy.

• Increased 75 lb load capacity. Exceptional load capacity to weight ratio
  
• Additional Aux accessory ports and autoguider port on the Dec axis for better cable management
  
• Larger 144 mm diameter worm wheels to better and more accurately drive heavier loads
  
• Longer 270 mm dovetail saddle to better support larger optical tubes
  
• Heavy duty, 31.5 mm stainless steel counterweight shaft to support additional counterweights
  
• Spring-loaded brass worm wheel and stainless steel worm gear reduce friction and provide optimum gear mesh
  
• Internal cabling for worry-free remote operation. Power input and lower accessory ports remain stationary while the mount slews to avoid snags
  
• Includes Celestron's new PWI telescope control software, co-developed by PlaneWave Instruments. Software features multi-point mount modeling for extremely precise pointing accuracy
  
• Adjustable EQ head position to optimize center of gravity and fully utilize the increased 3°-65° latitude range
  
• Integrated handles for easy transport and portability
  
• All-new ergonomically designed dovetail clamping knobs

For centuries, the German equatorial mount has been the choice of astronomers and astrophotographers because of its stability, portability, and universal scope adaptability. It is more stable because the center of gravity is directly over the center of its base. It is more portable because it can be broken down into smaller component parts than a fork-mount telescope for easier storage and transportation. As for being universally adaptable, it can be used with physically long refractors and reflectors as well as short-tube catadioptric scopes.

For astrophotography, the German equatorial mount offers easier balancing; unlimited space at the rear of the telescope tube to mount a long camera equipment train that can't bump into the drive base, as is the case with many fork-mounted scopes; and whole sky access that many fork-mounted scopes can't achieve.

For German equatorial mount lovers and serious astrophotographers, Celestron has developed this new 75 pound payload capacity CGX-L equatorial mount.

Heavy duty mount head: The Celestron CGX-L is a newly-designed high payload capacity/high precision go-to German equatorial mount that epitomizes all of these German equatorial mount virtues. With its full 75 pound payload capacity it will carry Celestron SCT/HD optical tubes up to 14" in aperture, as well as virtually any other optical tube and accessory payload weighing up to 75 pounds.

New features are everywhere in the Celestron CGX-L mount head. It has ergonomic handles that help you move the 47 pound head with ease. That's right; the head weighs only 47 pounds, but will carry 75, an incredible load to weight ratio.

In addition to the standard auxiliary ports in the mount head, additional accessory ports are built into the dovetail saddle plate of the equatorial head. There are two auxiliary ports as well as an autoguider port. The internal cabling of the CGX-L mount works hand in hand with these new ports on the saddle helping the imager in all of us manage our cables.

The dovetail saddle plate is longer for added stability and accepts both Vixen/AVX and Losmandy/Celestron D Style dovetails.

There are built-in home and limit sensors. The home sensor takes the scope back to its home position at any time and the limit sensor prevents the mount from slewing past a certain point. Built-in mechanical hard stops protect your scope from damage should you forget to lock the mount.

Mount drive system: The CGX-L mount head contains 144mm worm wheels in both right ascension and declination. The improved drive system uses a belt-driven spring-loaded worm gear. This allows the drive to maintain optimum gear mesh for smoother tracking and less backlash.

The mount requires 2.5 Amp 12 VDC power to operate. The maximum 2.5 amp power draw happens only briefly when accelerating to the high speed slewing mode from a standing start. Normal power draw with a well-balanced payload is generally considerably less than half the maximum draw. The mount comes with a car battery cord to operate from the cigarette lighter plug of your car or from a rechargeable 12 VDC battery pack. The 17 amp hour capacity Celestron Power Tank
#4517V is recommended and will operate the mount all night long without danger of running out of power. The Celestron #2338PRO ac adapter will let you operate the mount from household AC power for backyard and observatory use.

Specially designed power management electronics deliver constant regulated power to the motor so that it is capable of driving the mount even when your scope not perfectly balanced. This allows your CGX-L to have the payload capacity of that of much larger (and more expensive) mounts without sacrificing smooth tracking motion and pointing accuracy across the entire sky.

Polar alignment: To make a casual no-tool polar alignment for visual use quick and easy, there's a latitude scale with large ergonomically-friendly altitude and azimuth adjustment knobs. If serious long exposure astrophotography is in your plans, the special All-Star Polar Alignment software described below allows you to choose any bright alignment star for a software-assisted alignment of the mount's polar axis, even if you can't see the North Star. The mount also has upgraded adjustments for latitude and azimuth. Large one hand knobs make moving a fully-loaded mount head easy with a simple twist of the wrist.

Counterweight: The CGX-L mount comes with one 22 pound counterweight.The counterweight locks in place on the 5 pound steel counterweight shaft with a single hand-tighten knob, making it easy to rebalance your scope in right ascension if you add heavy photographic accessories. If needed, optional counterweights are available to balance very heavy loads.

Mounting an optical tube: Optical tubes are installed on the CGX-L mount using a slot on the mount head that accepts a Celestron CGE-style/Losmandy D-plate dovetail or a Celestron AVX/CG5/Vixen slide bar. This allows the optical tube to be quickly and precisely balanced fore and aft on the mount in declination, eliminating the need for an extra counterweight to balance a camera or other accessories. Setup and take downtimes are exceptionally fast, with large hand-tighten knobs holding the optical tube in place.

Mount weight: The equatorial head and thread-in counterweight shaft total 52.6 pounds. The supplied counterweight weighs 22 pounds. The new ergonomic handles on the mount head make it much easier for a single person to move and break down the mount in the field with ease.

NexStar computer hand control: The NexStar computer hand control of the CGX-L mount has a built-in database of more than 40,000 stars, deep space objects, and solar system objects it can locate for you. These include the complete RNGC, Messier, Caldwell, IC, and Abell catalogs; selected SAO stars; the planets, the Moon, and others. The custom database lists of all the most famous deep-sky objects by name and catalog number; the most beautiful double, triple and quadruple stars; variable stars; non-planetary solar system objects; and asterisms. It contains enough fascinating objects to keep you busy observing for the rest of your life.

You can also store and edit the right ascension and declination of 100 objects of your own choosing, such as the comet and asteroid coordinates published monthly in Astronomy and Sky & Telescope magazines.The computer control can quickly find any of those objects at your command, and track them with high accuracy for visual observing or astrophotography.

All of the database and scope operation information is displayed on a double line, 16-character, liquid crystal display on the hand control. This display leads you through the steps necessary to line up the scope on the sky, locate objects, control scope functions like the brightness of the hand control display, and much more. It shows you basic information about the object being viewed (such as the object's name, catalog designation, type, magnitude, and so forth). In addition to this basic information, there is enhanced information on over 200 of the most note-worthy objects. The display can also show you the right ascension and declination coordinates at which the scope is aimed.

Alignment on the sky and go-to accuracy: No polar alignment finderscope is available for the CGX-L mount, nor is any needed. A unique Celestron All-Star Polar Alignment program built into the NexStar hand control helps you do a very precise polar alignment in mere minutes for long exposure astrophotography, even if the celestial pole is hidden by trees. It works in both northern and southern hemispheres.

Although the telescope's tracking may be very good after alignment, pointing accuracy may need to be improved (particularly if you are trying to located small objects on a CCD chip), depending on how close your initial mechanical alignment was on the pole, and by much the mount had to be moved during polar alignment. If that's the case, you can easily update your telescope's star alignment in a minute or two if necessary.

Once polar aligned, several different sky alignment methods are built into the NexStar computer to line up the scope on the celestial sphere, allowing you to choose a level of computer accuracy in automatically finding objects with which you are comfortable. These include 2-Star Align, Solar System Align, Last Alignment, Quick Align, and 1-Star Align,

With just a standard hand control alignment, the CGX-L computer has the ability to center a star in your telescope's eyepiece or on a CCD chip to within 5 arc minutes. Using the NexStar computer's advanced pointing features (such as Calibration Stars, Sync, and Precise Go-To) further improves the pointing accuracy to as low as 1 arc minute in the desired region of the sky. The high precision pointing subroutine (Precise Go-To) in the computer lets you point accurately at objects that you want to photograph that are too dim to be seen though the scope. Other software features include: database filter limits, amount hibernate mode, and user-defined slew limits. The Celestron CGX-L comes with Celestron's new PWI telescope control software, co-developed by PlaneWave Instruments, that features multi-point mount modeling for extremely precise pointing accuracy.