Snooze

If that's the case then I think i'll just get the one that comes at the cheapest price

How do you find it? I read that it's harder to balance with a dslr attached to it since the L shaped ring is not long enough?

Great set of pictures. I'll definitely keep an eye out for a nice deal on the 72ed. I've also found this one that seems to be almost identical to the 72ED. Does any of you know anything about it? https://www.astroshop.de/fr/telescopes/refracteur-apochromatique-ts-optics-ap-70-420-ed-ota/p,62741

Very nice indeed! By the way how do you find the 72ED? I have seen very mixed reviews and from the pictures I have seen there seems to still be a bit of CA on brighter stars? I'm currently looking for a small ED refractor and would have liked the new evolux ed refractor but it does not seem that it will be released any time soon. Cheers

Hi guys, I played with my AZ-GTi yesterday night and had a lot of fun imaging from my window. Gave guiding a shot and did 2 minutes exposures with a 300mm lens. I roughly pointed the setup North using the compass on my phone and did a 1 star alignment and was surprised when the phd graph showed an RMS of about 3" which was fine by me since my polar alignment was not accurate at all. Go To was really nice too (considering a 1 star alignment) and both of my targets were close to the centre at 300mm However I ran into an issue (known issue with the ASI 120MC?) where PHD2 would randomly shift the image or mirror the image which would result in the loss of the guiding star. I had to deal with this all night. Sometimes it would go back to normal after a few seconds but most of the time I had to stop the guiding and start it again but the issue would come back after a couple of minutes. I was very frustrating but I worked through it and capture M5 and M10. M5 : 14 * 2min exposures M10: 21 * 2min exposures Image quality is not the best here because I have a street lamp pointing at my window at about 10m away, but overall I'm happy to have managed to capture these 2 targets. Cheers

From what I have heard lately, it looks like the comet is disintegrating? I hope it survives till start of May so I can image it

That's a great image! I'm stuck inside because of the confinement period 😕 can't wait till this is over so I get to play more with the mount

Is the RA axis of the mount supposed to rotate 360° when the clutch is disengaged? Cause mine has some resistance when trying to rotate it fully around the RA axis. Also this RA axis is a bit stiff on one side. Is it the same for you guys?

I will try to get a better polar alignment next time and see if i can achieve consistent 2min exposures. In the meantime, here is a processed single shot image at 120s from the last session with rough polar alignment. Cheers

So I got an M8 bolt for the wedge and a threaded rod for the counterweight. Everything works like a charm Went out tonight to test everything and Go To was not too bad. Everything was in the field of view with my 200mm lens but tracking was all over the place. I pointed the mount with DSLR roughly facing north and centered Polaris in the view finer. Then I did a 2 star alignment on Venus and Sirius. Then told the mount to slew to M42 and it was more or less centered on my DSLR screen. I proceeded to take a 1min exposure and there was no star trails, then a 2min exposure and I got a little bit of star trail. I did a second 2min exposure and suddenly i had lots of star trails. I did a reset and started over again and same result. The first exposure after alignment was good but the next one had star trails. Anyone had a similar issue? First 120s exposure Second exposure After that I stopped trying to fix the tracking but instead played around with the Go To which I found was pretty nice. Now for the questions: 1. Does the 2 star or 3 star alignment compensate for bad polar alignment? Or is it used only to for the Go To functions? (first time using a Go To mount) 2. there is a polar alignment feature in the app. I tried it but found that I could not centre the star with altitude/azimuth adjustments(mount probably not level) so I just gave up. Is this feature reliable? What I'm tempted to do next time is mount my little star adventurer with polar scope on the AZ-GTI for polar alignment and then remove it to mount my dslr.

My AZ GTI arrived. I'm so excited and also found out I need a couple of adapters to makes things work. Looks like I need another retaining bold for the eq wedge cause the plastic head is slightly too big. I also need an adapter to make the counterweight bar from the star adventurer work 😕 Hope I can sort these out before saturday so I can start testing things :D.

I pulled the trigger and ordered the AZ-GTI and an omegon 50mm guide scope. Hope I get a good unit that tracks well.

Thanks The Sigma 70-200 is not too bad but it's not the best lens ever either. It is certainly a huge upgrade over my sigma 70-300 f/4 - f/5.6. I find that stars are little bit bloated with my copy of the lens and it can be hard to get good/perfect focus even with a bahtinov mask. Also there is some coma at the edges even at f/4. There is very little CA andIMO images are quite sharp if you manage to get focus right at f/4. I've seen canon versions of the lens that had worst CA than the sigma. Also I got mine at a bargain price of 150€ (used without autofocus) so I very happy with how it performs . Cheers, Alex

I have already looked at the huge thread on cloudy nights but it's more related to visual and the few astro posts were about guiding which I'm not really interested in right away. I'm more interested about unguided performance Very impressive images @knobby!! 90s unguided sounds great Now i'm even more excited about getting the mount. Concerning FLO, do you guys know how returns are processed from outside the UK? I'm in France and it would suck if I have to pay shipping to send it back in case the mount needs replacing. Cheers

Hello everyone, I currently have a Star adventurer mini and i've been looking for a mount 'upgrade' for some time. Looking around on various forums, I found the AZ-GTI and saw that people have been getting up to 10min sub with a small refractor and guiding. Why the AZ-GTI you may ask. It's simply because i'm looking at portability and cost. At first I was considering an EQ3-2 but since both have a 5kg payload and can be guided, I thought the GTI would be a better fit and it is also less expensive. However I have a few questions regarding the little mount that I cannot seem to find anywhere: What kind of exposures can I hope to get with a 360/400mm lens/refractor unguided? I'm looking to keep at least a reasonable amount of subs at 1min. I have managed okish 1min subs at 300mm(small 70-300 zoom) with my SAM Is the 3 star alignment enough for imaging? I can always drift align to perfect PA. I plan on guiding at some point but i don't want to carry a laptop with me in the beginning. Now please spare me the get a HEQ5 comments. I'm not new to astrophotography and have been doing so for 3+ years with budget gear and I would like to keep it that way because I like the challenge and it also shows you don't need thousands of dollars to get into the hobby. I would rather spend 250€ on a mount I will use now than wait months/years to get a bigger/better mount plus as I said portability is the most important thing for me. So I would be grateful if AZ-GTI owners could share their experience and if it is worth it considering I have a SAM. Cheers

Went out to a dark site yesterday evening and managed these 2 pictures with my star adventurer mini, Canon 1200Da and Sigma 70-200 f2.8 First one was a widefield view of the orian cloud complex. Stacked about 50 x 60s images ISO800 @135mm F/4 Second target of the night was the Rosette Nebula. This time I stacked 64 x 75s images ISO800 @135mm F/4 Cheers

1) Do you have the L bracket? You can mount your scope as in the picture posted by 6footgeek 2) The main advantage of having the tripod lower is for stability. The lower the centre of mass of your setup, the more stable it is. But if you feel your tripod is rock solid then adjust it to a more comfortable height for polar alignment 3) My intervalometer's cable is long enough so I just put in on the ground while imaging. Avoid having cables/weights dangling around because they can introduce vibrations. Here are a few images I made with my Star Adventurer Mini this summer:

Thanks! You'll be surprised at the result these entrey level lenses give I look forward to seeing your images ! Cheers

Thanks

M31 imaged in a green zone. Managed to get about 30 x 75s subs with my Canon 1200D + Sigma 70-300 @190mm on my star adventurer mini mount. I aligned the mount as best as my patience would let me using drift alignment since I could not see Octans in my polar scope. Wanted to expose for longer but 75s was the max I could go with minimum star trail.

Rho Ophuichi region imaged with a canon 1200D + canon 50mm lens at f2.8. Managed to get about 36min of 1.5min exposures with my star adventurer mini mount. Will try to get more time on this target next time when it's higher in the night sky Cheers

Large Magellagic Cloud imaged in Rodrigues Island last September. Could only get 3 x 90s subs since the sun started to rise shortly after I started imaging. Imaged with a Canon 1200D + Star Adventurer Mini + Canon 50mm @f2.8 Cheers

Thanks everyone Really appreciate your nice comments !

Single 41s exposure of the Laggon and Triffid nebula at 214mm. Canon 1200D modded + Sigma 70-300

Thanks for the kind comments guys