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Skywatcher Adventurer mount, first light

PNJ

By PNJ
in Discussions - Mounts

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PNJ

PNJ

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Hi All,
This is my first impressions of the Skywatcher Adventurer mount, i have had the mount 3 days, and been lucky to try it out 2 of those nights for a few hours.
The mount seems very well made, and i was very please at the quality when i unpacked it.  Even the battery holder plastic cover was a nice strong fit.  The astro bundle comes with a ball head attachment that fits into the saddle, and also a L dove-tail bracket that has a fine tuning adjustment, very handy for centring targets or repositioning without undoing and clutches.   also counter weight bar and weight which i don't have yet, as the supplier is awaiting delivery.  the L bracket dovetail has a slot to allow viewing of the pole star through the polar scope.  The only downside, is the polar scope illuminator, its fine in itself, but you have to slot it into the saddle so that the light shines down the polar axis, so to polar align using the illuminator you have to leave any potential kit off the mount til you polar align.  I do Not like this, Because when you load up the mount with camera, telescope etc you can easily loose precise polar alignment.  However i referred to the old way, i loaded up my kit on the mount and shined a red torch down the polar axis.
The polar scope is very good, better than the standard one that comes with Eq6/Eq5 type mounts.  Moving the mount to Polar align using the Alt/Az adjustments was very smooth i got to say.

On to imaging,
The first night i just loaded up my  Canon 60d fitted with 70-200mm lens and did the usual 1,2, 3 minute exposures. the clouds started to roll in, but i had time to do a 5 minute exposure, and the star were nice and round,
The second night was a big hazy with clear patches, however i thought i try my CCD camera , a QSI 583 again loaded up with my Canon 70-200mm lens, and also i had a Altair 60mm finder/guidescope with my Lodestar.

using Maxim dl 5, it was a dream to calibrate the guiding, was bit worried about guiding for the first time using single axis guiding.
Again i started with 5 minutes at 100mm focal length,  and the images were bril, no sign of trailing,  then i went 10 minutes again at 100mm.  The images were very good as far as tracking and guiding, so thought i up the exposure to 16 minutes at the full 200mm on my Canon 70-200mm L Lens.
I was very pleased when the first image downloaded.   I did another 3 images before the cloud cover returned.
Here is a few photos, on the polar illuminator you will see i got a bit of velcro attached, that was so i could turn it upside down and attach it to the top of the dovetail to polar align with a full kit loaded.
The CCD image is off course of the North Amarican Nebula.   This is a single 1 x 16 min sub.

Any feedback will be welcome.
Paul Jenkins

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PNJ

PNJ

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Here is another professional review, but he does not mention that the mount can auto-guide, and also that the Dec assembly on the L dovetail bar has slow motion controll

paul J

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PNJ

PNJ

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Hi Michael,

My illuminator was the same at first until i got the larger dial into correct position, then i just use the brightness thumb screw

Have you got the counter weight with yours yet or did you buy the photo version

Paul

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PNJ

PNJ

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hi

just messing about really, it was a pain,   however you can not use the illuminator with your kit mounted , so i just use the red torch and shine it down the axis

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orly_andico

orly_andico

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I just picked up one of the Star Adventurer astro kits yesterday from Simon.  Apparently my idea (of using an EQ1 counterweight and shaft) also occurred to him.  No, they do not fit.

Probably if you are handy you could turn down the thread on the EQ1 shaft on a lathe to 9mm, then use a die to cut an M8 thread in it.

Another option would be to use an aluminium plate and bolt it to the DEC L-bracket to serve as a counterweight lever, at least until the shipment of actual weights and CW shafts arrives.

The build quality - frankly - pleasantly surprised me.  There is a toothed rack-and-pinion in the EQ wedge for adjusting the latitude, which is more Mach1 than EQ6.  The ratcheted bolt that tightens the altitude on the EQ wedge is also something off a Mach1 (or a Berlebach Planet).  The L-bracket itself is CNC-machined...

I was having second throughts about purchasing this mount because I've been burned before on Synta products, and had sworn not to buy a China mount ever again.  But the Takahashi P2Z on Astromart slipped through my fingers, so here I am..

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Yarosia

Yarosia

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Hey! Sorry to bother you... I got my unit this afternoon, but i got only a little question: my polar scope is not calibrated correctly i think, since when i turn RA axis polaris moves from the circle. Is calibration 'easy' for a newbie? I used Vixen Polarie for a year, nothing more, no experience with other equipment. Instruction manual describes it as a 'doable' operation (i think i got what it mean me to do)... But i would not like to ruin my tracker!

Anyway, with this kind of alignment, i got few 2mins subs with round stars with 300mm on fullframe camera, and 85% good subs with 1min subs... With full moon i just wanted to try tracking performance :D

Thanks for any reply!!! :D

Inviato dal mio GT-I9505 utilizzando Tapatalk

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orly_andico

orly_andico

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Download the manual for the Celestron CG4 polar scope or the Astro Physics PASILL. There are instructions on how to adjust the reticle. Note if the circle of rotation is small it may not be worth tinkering with it. The azimuth bolts on the star adventurer are only capable of 17' per bump on the rosette knob. So the azimuth adjustment is not that fine to begin with.

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Yarosia

Yarosia

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I got 80% 180sec good subs and almost 100% good at 120 sec with D610 and 300 f/4 afs with coubterweight. I think this trackers is awesome! Would like to try a small apo like apo65q...

Inviato dal mio GT-I9505 utilizzando Tapatalk

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Yarosia

Yarosia

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Nice :D Always without guide right? I hope to get a guidescope + camera from a friend for one night to try the apo65 guided... if it goes through 3 mins or more i'm done with portable (read: can carry in holydays and my gf doesn't isults me lol).

Inviato dal mio ME302C utilizzando Tapatalk

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