Celestron Omni CG-4 German Equatorial mount

$399.95

Availability: More on the way

The Celestron CG-4 German equatorial mount is a great value if you have a light-weight fast focal ratio 3" to 6" optical tube and want a simple no-frills equatorial mount (one that can be motorized) to hold your scope for visual use and casual astrophotography..

Our Product #: CG-4
Celestron Product #: 91509
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Product Description

The Celestron CG-4 German equatorial mount is the mount supplied as standard equipment with the Celestron Omni series of telescopes. These include scopes ranging in size from a 4" f/10 refractor up to a 6" f/5 refractor and a 6" f/5 Newtonian reflector (up to a maximum payload of 20 lbs).

The Celestron CG-4 mount does not come with a motor drive as standard equipment, but its manual worm gear drive slow motion controls will let you smoothly track celestial objects for visual observing with only an occasional twist of the wrist. Adding optional dual axis motor drive #MDCG4D will keep objects centered in the eyepiece continuously. If family viewing is planned, a motor drive means you don't have to worry about the object being observed drifting out of view while changing observers. This is especially handy when observing with small children or groups of people (at star parties or scout meetings, for example). If astrophotography is in the cards, the #MDCG4D motor drive/drive corrector is essential.

The Celestron CG-4 mount uses precision ball-bearings in both the right ascension and declination axes to assure smooth and hitch-free motion of your scope across the skies. Built-in non-powered setting circles are provided to help you find objects by using their right ascension (hour) and declination (degree) coordinates as shown in a star chart or atlas. The right ascension hour circle is equipped with a vernier scale that lets you adjust the telescope position in right ascension to an accuracy of one arc minute.

The standard manual right ascension and declination slow motion controls have easy-grip knobs that make manual tracking and small position adjustments a cinch. The extra-large control knobs are positioned so that they fall easily to hand when observing, so you don't have to grope blindly for the knobs when you need to make adjustments to the scope's position.

To make a casual polar alignment for visual use quick and easy, there's a latitude scale and fine adjustment controls in both altitude and azimuth. The mount can be used over a latitude range of approximately 20° to 60°. If astrophotography is in your plans, an optional polar finder #3912 is available to increase the accuracy of your alignment.

The mount's adjustable height tripod has 1.75" diameter stainless steel legs for strength and rigidity. There's a center leg brace that locks the tripod legs firmly in place for excellent vibration-damping. The center brace is drilled with several holes that will hold your 1.25" and 2" eyepieces conveniently at hand and up and out of the dew-soaked grass. The no-tool locking knobs that adjust the height of the tripod are located on the inside of the tripod legs. This keeps them from snagging clothing in the dark, a thoughtful touch sure to be appreciated. The tripod adjusts over a height range of 33" to 47". As with all tripods, it is at its most rigid and stable when at its lowest height.

Two counterweights totaling 11 pounds (one 7 lb. and one 4 lb.) are supplied to balance the optical tube. The sliding counterweights are locked in place with a single hand-tighten thumbscrew each, making it easy to rebalance the scope as you add and remove accessories.

A Vixen-style dovetail slot in the CG-4 head allows an optical tube using an optional Vixen-style dovetail to be quickly and precisely balanced fore and aft on the mount, eliminating the need for an extra counterweight to balance a camera or other accessories. Setup and takedown times are exceptionally fast, as no tools are required to assemble the mount and tripod and only a single large hand-tighten knob holds an optical tube in place. A second smaller lock knob prevents the tube from sliding off the mount should the hand-tighten knob loosen.

The CG-4 equatorial head weighs 10 lbs (4.5 kg). The 7 lb (3.2 kg) and 4 lb (1.8 kg) counterweights total 11 lbs (5 kg). The tripod weighs 12.5 lbs (5.7 kg). Total weight of the complete mount set up to receive an optical tube is 33.5 lbs (15.2 kg).

The CG-4 mount is protected by Celestron's two-year warranty.

Tech Details

Weight 33.5 lbs.
Warranty 2 years

Reviews

Review by:
A guy in my club took his mount on and off to store and transport this mount, he stripped the treads out, not by taking it off and on, but but cross threading and forcing the steel bolt into the aluminum mount threads. He gave it to me as he was just going to throw it away a few years ago and I took the bolt to an auto parts store and matched the bolt up to a stainless Helicoil and installed it. Now the threads are stronger than when it was brand new. Literally stronger as you cannot strip the stronger stainless Helicoil with the steel bolt, you'd strip the threads on the steel mounting bolt first, but you would know it if it were to get cross threaded because the bolt simply wouldn't be able to be turned very easy at all. (Posted on 12/23/2022)
Review by:
Unknown alloy on inner threads of mount. Mine have vanished, and no longer hold my mount to the Tripod. Can you imagine your precious scope riding on something that may eventually fail and you scope comes crashing to the ground?

Fortunately mine did not have a scope on it when I discovered this.

I had this mount sitting in a corner for 18 months, unused, just sitting there, I have others I use, and in fact I own 2 of these mounts..

I came across this problem when taking the mount off the tripod, then at site I went to connect and got nothing. I got fed up trying to attach it , could not, used a flash light to see what's what, and wow, there is nothing left but threads that have diminished so much they wont hold the mount to the tripod. Areas that were entirely worn away.

I asked about this with support and they have no idea what the alloy is. No idea?

Anyway, I checked my other mount, it is showing signs that it's going also.

Wont use them , and wont sell them, not sure if I can salvage anything. Tripods are nice. It's just this one problem.

I have never put anything heavier than a 127 mak on either.

A shame really, they were solid when I used them, but had I'd known this issue, I'd never have put a scope on them.

I own many mounts, these are the only ones I have had this issue with.

Check yours if you own one.

Best to be safe, hope no one else has this problem.

Best of luck to all. (Posted on 6/4/2020)
Review by:
I have had an older version of this mount for quite some time and it has worked great, especially for my 80mm Vixen . Motions are very smooth. I have had it for years and it just keeps on working. (Posted on 10/31/2019)
Review by:
This is a very sturdy well made mount. It handles my 127 mak with ease and is very smooth and steady. I also have the RA motor and polar finder scope.You will not be disappointed with the build quality of this mount. (Posted on 10/7/2019)
Review by:
This was my first 'serious' EQ mount and it served me well. I added the polar scope and also the motor drives in order to dabble in astrophotography. I was able to image the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and a couple of brighter nebulae. I use a 150mm Omni Reflector with it. (Posted on 7/24/2019)
Review by:
This is a good light weight EQ mount that is great for beginners to use and learn on. I had it with 102 Omni and it was a great pairing. You can definitely pick up both together in one go and be observing in no time! It's quite steady with minimal vibration. (Posted on 7/23/2019)
Review by:
I officially made my return to astronomy when I bought a non motorized cg-4 a few years ago, and found it to be a very solid mount at the time, holding my 6inch sct without issue. It holds up a 6inch f4 newt as well and remains well damped, but the slow motion controls have more stiction I could never tune out. I had a little trouble with wrongly sized screws in the head repeatedly coming loose and replaced them with screws .5mm bigger to fix it.
Solid first time GEM but not your choice if you want goto. (Posted on 7/22/2019)
Review by:
The Celestron CG-4 is a great work-horse with a load capacity greater than the OEM recommends! With the optional motor tracking drive installed, you are ready for a night of fun! It is a smooth and solid mount. The polar scope is accurate and will give a you good polar alignment! (Posted on 12/28/2018)
Review by:
What a great mount anything from my 80mm up to my 6in refractor it is smooth in all directions and looks really nice to (Posted on 12/1/2018)
Review by:
Just got this mount in and tested it the first weekend I had it. Tested on Andromeda and the Orion Nebula with ST80 and the results were beyond expectation. With an alignment scope and multi-axis drive system I am no longer limited by short exposures and I didn't break the bank. This is an excellent choice for a first tracking mount and with a 20 lb capacity you have several opportunities for slapping on other scopes or cameras. It is really all I need. Goto will be nice to have someday but if you don't mind taking a little extra time to actually research and find objects (which I think is enjoyable to an extent) then this is a great choice. Solid build. Very stable. And not too many bells and whistles. (Posted on 11/14/2018)
Review by:
I mostly use this with 100mm F/9 refractor. It is adequate for that job, with just 1-2 seconds of dampening time required at higher powers. C6 works very well on this mount. The CG4 is rock solid with smaller/shorter scopes. With the counterweights removed (which takes about 8 seconds) the CG4 is downright light. Spreader and mount are easy to separate from the tripod for compact transport or storage. Overall, a great mount for smaller scopes, and strong enough to overload if one chooses to accept longer dampening times. I do recommend upgrading to 11" motion cables. (Posted on 10/26/2018)
Review by:
It should be said that I am a relative beginner in the hobby of astrophotography. That is why i've had this mount. It is cheap and relatively easy to use. I must say that there are issues. The tensioning screws for the gears on both axis do have trouble keeping the axis from shifting even a few degrees. That said it can be easily fixed even out during observing. The motors are not the best in the world, but they do the job. The actual speed of the motors is spot on, however this implies that you know how to polar align your mount. The motors do the job well, but are very fragile. The circuit boards are exposed and the gears do not align without extreme tuning. In summary if you are willing to put time into this mount rather than money I think you will be pleased. If you are looking for a easy mount that does a lot of the work for you this is not the mount for you.
I hope this has been helpful to someone! (Posted on 10/25/2018)
Review by:
There’s a lot of people who think only alt-az can be true grab and go but the CG-4 has been my favorite portable mount for years. Equipped with a dec motor and polar scope, I take this to all our clubs public nights and outreach events. The tubular stainless steel legs and cast aluminum spreader provide a rigid platform for either my AR102 or C6 sct. Drop the mount on the ground, bump the legs around until polaris is in the polar scope and then point it wherever you want and turn on the drive. Your object stays in view for long periods so your guests can see what you told them would be in the EP. it’s built like a tank, easily carried assembled and holds up to 20 lbs. setup time is equal to alt-az but ease of tracking is what makes the difference. If someone stole my CG-4, I would run right out and buy another one without hesitation. (Posted on 10/6/2018)
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