Mounts
Most observers change telescopes and keep the mount. That is the argument for spending on it first, and the figure that decides everything is payload — which almost none of these listings publish.
A mount within its capacity damps a touch in a second; the same mount slightly over it rings for four. That difference is the whole experience of using a telescope at high magnification, and it is not visible in any photograph of the mount.
A tracking drive keeps an object in the field once it is found. It does not find it, and it does not correct a mount that was not polar-aligned. A GoTo system does the finding and still depends on the alignment being done properly.
An equatorial mount only works balanced. The counterweight shaft diameter and the weight’s bore are the two figures that decide whether a given weight fits, and they are published far more reliably than payload is.
Tripods. A mount head bought for its capacity and set on a light aluminium tripod performs like the tripod, not like the head — which is why several listings on this site publish the head and say nothing about the legs.
114 mm mirror · 900 mm focal length · EQ-1 mount
A complete 114/900 Newtonian on an EQ-1 equatorial mount with two-axis slow motion, supplied with two eyepieces, a 6x30 finder and a 2x Barlow.
Best for: A first equatorial telescope for the Moon and planets
≈ $399 / €239
76 mm · 700 mm focal length · AZ-1 mount
A compact 76/700 telescope on an AZ-1 alt-azimuth mount, supplied with three eyepieces, a 2x Barlow and a red dot finder.
Best for: A light, simple second telescope or a first one for a teenager
≈ €139
90 mm · 500 mm focal length · f/5.5 · EXOS II GoTo mount
A 90/500 wide-field refractor on the EXOS II computerised GoTo mount, with the maker’s recommended maximum magnification published as 180x.
Best for: Wide-field observing with GoTo pointing, and a mount with room to grow
≈ €636
14 kg stated capacity · computerised GoTo · alignment without Polaris
A computerised German equatorial GoTo mount with a stated capacity of 14 kg and an alignment routine that does not require sight of Polaris.
Best for: Imaging from a site where the pole is behind a building
≈ $1099 / €1199
2.6 kg · 21 mm bore · steel · locking screw
A steel counterweight of 2.6 kg with a 21 mm bore and a locking screw, made for the EQ-500 X and fitting many other shafts.
Best for: Balancing a heavier tube or a camera on a 20–21 mm counterweight shaft
≈ £36 / €37
More than the tube weighs. The usual working rule is to keep visual loads well inside the rating and imaging loads further inside still, because imaging shows vibration that the eye forgives.
An equatorial follows the sky with one motion once polar-aligned, which matters for imaging. An alt-azimuth moves the way a person looks around, which matters for finding things. For visual use the second is easier; for photography the first is close to necessary.
They are size or product names, not standards with published capacities. This site treats the absence of a payload figure as the finding rather than reading the name as one.
Any figure written into the body of this page was true on the day it was written. The amount shown next to each instrument is requested from the retailer as the page loads, and it is that amount, not the text, that stands.
Telescopes and mounts are discounted over and over through the year — hardest of all in the weeks before Christmas, which is exactly when most of them are bought — and a struck-through figure on its own says nothing whatever about what the same model was charged at four weeks ago. UniverTrack keeps a week-by-week record for each retailer, so a discount is measured against a figure somebody genuinely paid instead of one invented for the sale — and it says when the moment to buy has genuinely arrived.
