Celestron Dual Axis Motor Drive (Advanced CG4)

I purchased these dual axis drives for my newly arrived Celestron Omni which rides a CG4 mount and tripod. They are quality brass and chrome pieces with no difficult requirements for attaching to the mount gears. Once in place and the batteries are turned on the RA drive tracks precisely even at a rough north alignment. Both drives respond quickly with minimal backlash and smooth movement when viewing through the eyepiece. The control box is the standard Celestron model provided with the older G5 and C5 series but it's a fine unit with N/S directional switch, 2x, 4x, 8x tracking speeds and with a bit of velcro sits nicely on the side of the tripod. Watch wrapping the phone cables when re-orienting from north to south, it would be great to have coiled cables with these but everything is quite functional.Good Viewing!

This is a great upgrade gets you between a manual mount and a goto which is a perfect setup for alot of us only thing I wish it had but may not need is a variable speed control on the right assention motor I'll be able to find out with the next clear sky very easy to install and setup and only issue I had so far the wires connection at the battery box was bad had to repair but was easy fix and now I'm excited to get this out and actually put it through the paces

While it worked it was very good - held on target even at highest magnification. But after about 50 hours of use the box died and the stepper motors no longer working. I would rate this as very unreliable electronics! Buy a decent go-to-mount instead!

I originally bought these motors to allow hands-free tracking of the planets with my CG-4. What I didn't expect was the excellent planetary images it was capable of aiding in. If you're looking for an entry into AP with the planets and the Moon, look no further.The motors are a breeze to install, allowing more time outside tracking your favorite objects. I bought 4 Tenergy Centura rechargeable D batteries to power the setup which last many days before needing charged. The Dec and RA motors are placed on the brass shafts that the slow-motion knobs are attached to on your mount. On the CG-4, this prevents you from using the slow-motion controls to starhop. The Dec motor has a clutch which can be loosened so you can manually track in Dec (up and down). The RA has no such clutch, so the coupling will need to be loosened with an allen wrench if you hope to manually track in RA (left and right). Also, be aware that this setup cannot slew. It only tracks, and even at the fastest setting (8x, which I use when imaging), you can barely tell it's moving. For quickly pointing at an object, you will need to hold the telescope tube with both hands and aim it at the desired target.These motors also open the door to beginner astrophotography of the various solar system objects. With accurate polar alignment, i've been able to take upwards of 3 minute subs. I'm sure it's capable of more, but this is as far as i've gone.Whether you're looking to keep Saturn centered in the eyepiece, or you want to try your hand at planetary imaging; there's no doubt these motors are more than capable. At $100, they have already more than paid for themselves.UPDATE: 2/25/14 - I've since upgraded to the Advanced VX mount, but have returned to update this review. First, do not buy the batteries I recommended. They only provide 4.5V of power when the motors require 6V; even when fully charged, it still isn't enough. Instead, I bought a cheap 6V power adapter (6V 1A AC Adapter to dc Power Adapter 5.5/2.1mm) which worked like a charm. Even though i've moved on to a bigger mount, I would still recommend this product in a heartbeat.

I have read a lot of reviews regarding the aesthetics of this motor set up and while I have nothing to compare it to in that regard, mechanically it works great. This motor set up comes with a clutch you can disengage with your hand for quick slewing and a simple controller. When you get your target centered in your eyepiece (using the controller) with your tripod polar aligned, the motor drive will track in single sidereal when you switch it on. Essential for astro-photography.

This kit requires you to remove the RA cable (or at least renders it useless), meaning you cannot fine tune RA except with the motor. This would be fine, except the motor moves way too slowly even on 8x speed to be useful.Every single piece of this kit is made of the cheapest materials obtainable, with no thought whatsoever given to quality. There are exposed circuit boards, cable management is a mess, the cables are not replaceable, the battery pack is inexplicably separate from the controller which gives you even more cables hanging around everywhere, and for some reason it requires three different sizes of Allen wrenches to assemble.Lastly, it also does not track stars unless you hold the tracking button, so it isn't especially useful for exposures longer than 10 seconds or so--or even for visual astronomy, if you just want to sit back for a few minutes. The entire ensemble feels more like a bored hobbyist's weekend project than an OEM adapter. The only positives are that it does, in fact, sort of work, and it's really easy to install despite how it looks. I would highly recommend saving the money and putting it towards buying a Star Adventurer if the prices ever come back down to sane levels.

Muy buen producto para motorizar el telescopio de la misma marca. Se puede llevar muy bien el seguimiento de los astros con lo que permite sacar buenas fotografías. Recomendable

I trying out to use the telescope upgrade with attach two peices celestron controls movement. That's great stuff!

Product is fantastic. The only thing is you can't use the slow motion nobs anymore and the motors even a 8x speed are still very slow to try and find something.

Muy fácil de instalar, y su funcionamiento de lo mejor solo hay que aprender a usarlo seguimiento muy bueno.

Facil instalación, pero el motor Dec. no realizaba seguimiento y hay que buscar los 6v exactos! mala suerte pues van