Losmandy Complete Vixen Style Counterweight System for C8 or M8 Losmandy

About Losmandy

Losmandy mounts and dovetail systems have long been acknowledged as a pioneering force in the industry. With two mounts: the light weight GM-8, and the more universal G-11, most optical tube assembly can be supported by a Losmandy mount. Unlike most of our competitors who only use stepper motors, Losmandy has both entry level mounts with stepper motors, as well as more sophisticated servo motors that are otherwise only found on competitor mounts in the $10,000+ range.  Losmandy mounts driven by servo motors provide far more torque and accuracy than mounts using stepper motors. For example the GM8 has an 8°/sec slew rate and 5 arc-second positional accuracy.

Known for their stunning design and their ultra-precision mechanics, the mounts also lead the way with their powerful Gemini 2 Go-To software, on-board computer modules and hand-controllers. The Go-To positioning system is unique among its competitors with its full color graphic touch-screen display. The software has over 40,000 pre-programmed objects to choose from, which makes finding a desired portion of the sky amazingly simple. And as things evolve, firmware upgrades are available over the internet so your system will always remain current. It also can be switched between English, French, Spanish, or German, to better accommodate Losmandy’s world-wide market.

A truly industry-changing innovation was introduced by Losmandy way back in 1986, shortly after the first Losmandy mounts came on the market. This was the concept of the dovetail accessory system that has become the industry standard. This wide array of different size dovetail plates and mounting rings solved the various problems users were having as they tried to interface tube assemblies to mounts, piggy-back scopes, mount cameras to optics, etc.

Owner/designer Scott Losmandy, first opened a small machine shop in Hollywood, CA in 1981. After five years of producing for others, often making products that were not especially interesting to him personally, he began developing his own line of products to sell.
His first design challenge came about almost by accident, as a result of joining a local astronomy club. After listening to members constantly complain about the price and quality of the telescope mounts on the market, he off-handedly remarked, “Why, I could make a better mount than these,” to which the universal reply was, “Well, why don’t you?” And so Losmandy Astronomical Products was born and Scott Losmandy found his true calling as a design engineer. Lucky him–lucky the rest of us interested in viewing the magic of the night sky.