Anyone tried the Sharpstar Mark III Harmonic GEM? - Forums

Topic starter

Dec 2, 2021

I am shopping for a new mount, I currently have an heq5-pro witth a william optics zs 73 and I want a second rig with a longer focal lenght (1000mm and up). I feel like I am limited to something like an RC6 with my current mount, I don't want to struggle to have good guiding and not waste alot of subs.

I wanted to get an eq-6R, but can't find them anywhere so I was now considering the Ioptron CEM40, but then I stumbled upon that new mount. Seems like a pretty good price for a Harmonic drive and and easy to transport. I was wondering what the performance and support are. This looks promising, but I don't want to invest in something that I would have to debug all the time and/or get no support.

Any thoughts?

Thanks and clear skies!

David Nozadze

Dec 2, 2021

This mount looks very interesting, with such specs and price! Although there seem to be no Mark I or Mark II

I suppose, this is the first model in fact, so for some reason they decided to call it Mark III (prior developments or just to sound more convnincing?)
If this is indeed a frist generation model, I think, inevitably, it will develop some issues, which will be then solved in the future modifications.
Anyway, will be following this thread. I have EQ6R Pro and definitely want to have something lighter as my second rig.

Marzio Bambini

Sep 6, 2022

I'm looking at this mount too. I currently use an Avalon Linear and a Takahashi EM200. As we age, weight becomes important and so I am thinking of replacing the EM200 with the SharpStar Mark III. In recent days I have also tried the ZWO AM5 but with different perplexities. I wrote to support but with answers that leave the time they find, like … download the latest version of the software … but nothing more. So I wrote to SharpStar to get some clarification on some aspects of their mount … but they still haven't answered me. I don't know … maybe they are still too young frames?

Steve Cooper

Sep 6, 2022

20" of PE!? Am I reading this right?? It will need a lot of fast, short guide exposures/corrections.

kuechlew

Sep 7, 2022 · Edited: Sep 7, 2022

We have exactly one user with one image on astrobin: Sculptor Galax NGC253 ( James Zhen Yu ) - AstroBin
Maybe you reach out to the user directly.

We currently have a lot of new offerings by iOptron (HEM27, HEM40), ZWO (AM5), SharpStar (Mark III) and Pegasus Astro (Nyx). I heard about an Artesky BH17 but have no idea how real it is. Not a harmonic drive but lightweight and without need of counterweights is the new Avalon EVO Zero. To me the only selling point of these offerings is the low weight and low profile for maximum portability. For the harmonic drives this comes at the prize of high PE with quite irregular movement compared to the traditional mount technologies. As pointed out by Steve this requires short guide exposures in the 0.5-1 second range. 20" PE is on the low side for harmonic drives and I assume it's 20" peak-to-valley, not 20" peak-to-peak.

I'm currently in the waiting position to decide which mount I'm going to buy in the 2nd quarter of next year. It's way too early to judge which of these mounts is of high quality. Currently the Rainbow Astro mounts (RST-135/135E/300) are the only tried and tested harmonic drive mounts on the market with a significant user base. Unfortunately they are on the expensive side while they seem to be well build.

Hope this helps.

Clear skies
Wolfgang

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