ZWO AM5 Harmonic Drive Mount

ZWO AM5 with Harmonic Drive

AM5 is a larger travel mount for astrophotography. Although the mount itself weighs less than 5kg, it carries telescopes up to 20kg with and up to 13kg without a counterweight. As a travel mount, the polar elevation can be adjusted up to the equator - it belongs to the AZ-EQ mount family. The supplier measures the periodic error of each mount before delivery and guarantees a slowly occurring periodic error, which is less than 20" and can therefore be easily corrected by the ST4 interface for autoguiders.

According to the manufacturer, if the mount is aligned exactly to the north or south pole, it comes also without an autoguider (note from Lacerta: it is of course dependent on the focal length.)

Whether the mount is in which mode is shown by color coding (LED on the head): Red stands for parallactic mode and green for azimuthal mode.

No counterweight necessary

Thanks to robot technology, a counterweight (mandatory for equatorial mounts) is only necessary if the telescope weight is over 13 kg. This makes the ZWO-AM5 lighter and more compact. The cable clutter can also be omitted: in addition to the hand controller, communication can also take place via the ASI-AIR WiFi interface - a tablet or smartphone can be used instead of the hand box.

Scope of delivery

• ZWO-AM5 mount head
• Hand controller with cable
• carbon tripod

Technical specifications

• Equatorial mount (both azimuthal and equatorial modes)
• PE less than 20"
• Motorisation: NEMA42 (RA) and NEMA35 (DEC) stepper motors, each with a reduction of 1:100
• Carrying capacity: 20kg with GGW and 13kg without GGW
• Telescopic Clamp: Dual Quick Coupling Vixen & Losmandy
• Pole height setting: 0° to 90° north/south
• Counterweight rod: M12 thread / ?mm diameter
• Speeds: 0.5x - 1x - 2x - 4x - 8x - 20x - 60x -720x - 1440x (corresponds to 6°/sec)
• Power supply: 12V, minimum 1.5A stabilized (at least 3A is recommended)
• Autoguider input: ST4 protocol, compatible with MGEN