I guess it depends on the weight load your looking for. Atlas is rated for a bit over 40lbs I think. The CGEM pro is up to 90 I think? I have the atlas and have had to do a lot of work to it to get it to perform right. Im sure owners of the CGEM might say the same but I dont know for sure. The atlas is notorious for having a very bad rattling noise come out of the idle gear on the motor housing. It really doesn't sound good. Different people have done different modifications to fix this. I added some small teflon washers to mine. The worm bearings the atlas comes with are less than exceptional, I replaced mine with higher quality ceramic ones. The polar adjustment setup is a joke as well...the screws used to change the altitude settings often get bent out of shape because it is all under designed. The worm and gear adjustments most say they have to adjust for being off...along with the spacing adjustments. Also, most replace all of the grease. I only know about the atlas as I own one, can't speak much for the CGEM. The atlas was working fine out of box for smaller scopes, I had to do a lot of work to it to make it perform with a 10" ota on it. I will say, the EQMOD for it is pretty awesome tho. You dont need the hand controller to run it. You can use the eqmod, and starry night to get your goto's ect. Hope that is some useful info. Cheers David Chuck Hards wrote:
It's time for a new mount. I'm looking at the Orion Atlas, and the Celestron CGEM. Soliciting comments from owners/users of both.
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