After using standard EQ-mounts for so long, seeing something without a counter weight just looks wrong to my neanderthal brain. My current mount weighs 40lbs, the counter weight is 17lbs, and the tripod legs are 20lbs. So that's over 75lbs of weight and size of gear to move around every time it goes on a road trip. This design looks like it was a fraction of that. Color me intrigued
It looks like you have a typical OTA attached, what camera are you using with that? I've only ever used my DLSR attached to the OTA for prime photography, but it is heavy. I've learned to test the position by hand of the camera through the full rotation to see how the orientation of the camera will change throughout the night to prevent hanging situations and so it has forward tension. I noticed more backlash type issues when it had reverse tension. The one thing I haven't done yet, is to just attached the camera to a small ball head to do tracked wide angle images. However, I really haven't done any dark sky shooting in many years, pre-Starlink. I wonder if long tracked exposures with wide angles would ever not be affected by Starlink trails
I switch between the cheap Byomic 76/700 newton and my Sigma 600mm lens (Canon EF but using an adapter to fit the Olympus body). I tried to get the DSLR looking into the newtonian but it was just too heavy, causing the plastic focuser to simply bend way off axis. I've since bought a dedicated astro camera (Neptune C II) which fits alright on the newtonian. I'm keeping the Byomic 76 only for visual observations now. Looking to buy a proper refractor of around 480mm. The Sigma 600 does alright with the DSLR but isn't very sharp, hard to focus and suffering from some coma. It's good enough to learn the ropes for now.
Yeah, in astro, the quality of the lens shows in much more disappointing ways that regular photography. Any softness from the lens can be part of the art in regular photography, but in astro is a lesser image.
Maybe I missed it, but where in Europe are you? Are the temps part of your softness issue? I'm in Texas, and during the summer when it's prime time for central part of the Milky Way the seeing is horrible from the extreme high temps and the disturbance it causes in the air.
I've been looking at getting a dedicated astro camera as well to reduce that weight as well as free up the camera body to go back to its primary mission of time lapse. I've already gone down the rabbit hole deep enough to have a secondary scope and camera to use as a guide scope to overcome any of the slight mis-alignments during polar alignment. The hole is deep and easy to fall into. Be careful when looking down that hole wondering how far you'd be willing to go as you'll be deeper than you expected before you realize you've left the edge.
Just for comparison:
I've got a Juwei-17 (Onstep harmonic drive with performance similar to the ZWO AM5N, but at nearly half the price) paired with the ZWO TC4 carbon fibre tripod.
The tripod has a load capacity of 50 kg (110 lbs) and weighs just 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs). The harmonic drive mount has a load capacity of 13 kg (29 lbs), or 18 kg (lbs) with a counterweight, and weighs 5.5 kg (12 lbs). Alltogether, the setup weighs about 8 kg (18 lbs) since I don't have to use counterweights.
I estimate a load capacity of 8-10kg. It's not designed for the really big equipment cause I also would like to take it on camping trips. If I were to do this again I will definitely add a threaded hole to mount a counterweight bar. I've noticed the tracking accuracy drop slightly when the mount is in the most overhanging positions.