Mounts

Many mounts exist for telescopes, but they generally fall into one of three categories:

• altitude-azimuth mounts (often referred to as alt-az mounts or Dobsonian mounts)
• German Equatorial Mounts (usually abbreviated as GEMs)
• fork mounts

Most mounts sold as seperate items are either GEMs or alt-az mounts. However, some who have purchased Schmidt Cassegrain or Maksutov telescopes will remount their optical tube and sell the fork mount that originally came with their telescope.

The mount that you choose depends largely on the purpose for which you use your telescope. If you like to take quick looks at the sky or if you do terrestrial spotting, then an alt-az or Dobsonian mount is probably best. These are light and represent the utmost in simplicity. If you want to study objects closely or do short exposure photography you will need a fork mount, a GEM, or a computer driven alt-az. If you want to do long exposure photography a good fork mount or GEM is needed.

Altitude-Azimuth Mounts:

The first chart covers generic tripod mounts. It does not represent the wobbly, nearly useless mounts provided with many cheap refractors and reflectors. It also leaves out the "Dobsonian" mouts typically used on large Newtonian reflectors because these are rarely interchangeable and are not typically sold separately on the used market. The second chart shows some prices for specific mounts.

Light Duty (60-70mm refractors)	Medium Duty (80-90mm refractors
$50-100	$100-200

German Equatorial Mounts:

GEMs make up the vast majority of mounts available on the used market. There are many "no-name" mounts around that are really quite good. Older mounts produced by Edmund Scientific and Jaegers abound, as well as import mounts from Japan. These mounts are reflected in the first chart below. The "Light Duty" mounts are those with a Polar axis shaft of less than 3/4". The "Medium Duty" mounts have a 1" Polar shaft. The "Heavy Duty" mounts have a Polar shaft of 1 1/2" or greater. The second chart shows some prices for specific makes and models of some more popular mounts. This list will be updated as time goes along, and one day may have it's own spot in the price lists.

Light Duty Equatorial	Medium Duty Equatorial	Heavy Duty Equatorial
$90-200	$125-300	$400-500

Fork Mounts:

The chart below covers a wide range of fork mounts. Most of these mounts are motorized with at least an AC driven motor. Some come with quartz controlled DC drives, declination drives and handpaddles. Generally the forks will support either 8" or 10" tubes, although occasionally you'll come across one for 3 1/2", 4", 5", 6", 11" and 14" tubes. On the 8" and larger units the bases are usually the same, and the attached forks determine which tube size they fit. The price range reflects the difference between a basic AC driven mount and a deluxe mount loaded with features.

3 1/2" through 4"	5" though 10"	11" plus
$60-200	$150-500	$400-1200