AstroTrac TT320 Portable Mount Review Update

[mehmet]

Crikey, I thought I'd gone back in a time warp

Interested in that travel system Mehmet.  Do you think it lives up to it's name or do you think it compromises the original Astrotrak ethos?

Its just amazing system. You can easily take exposures of 5 minutes with your DSLR. The only caveat is the polar scope. It falls down often because I forget that its in place and i bump into that, but there are solutions for that. I am just too lazy to do that. I usually align the system at the beginning, and take it off the system just before I start imaging. 

Some people place scopes on it to have a long focal length. I tried explore scientific 102 scope on it, and didn't work. Its just too much for the system. I use 400mm Sigma lens on it. I have a lot of pictures on my site. photo.myesiltas.net

[m.tweedy]

Little tip re polar scope. I originally used the foam pipe lagging but have discovered that the magnets out of redundant hard disk drives are shaped "just right" as Goldilocks one said. 3 of them fit in a perfect circle around the top of the polar scope holder ring. I however doubled them up on top of each other 6 in total (well we did have a few dead hard disk drives) You cannot dislodge the polar scope with a hammer (don't try this at home)

It is a simple and elegant solution.

AND you can still rotate the polar scope to the right position without fear it will fall off.