Small mount for UK trip

[orly_andico]

I'll be traveling to the UK for holidays in a couple days.  In spite of the very short nights, I know I will be kicking myself if I am presented with clear skies and I can only rage impotently at the heavens.

Unfortunately, my Vixen Polaris is too heavy (16lb for head and tripod) and, the polar scope is unusable at 56 degrees latitude.  So I will not be bringing it along.

So now I have a few days to figure out which small mount to buy.  It has to be something that can be bought within the UK (hopefully I can get some VAT refund...)

Some of the choices (and my comments)

1) Vixen Polarie - without the German polar scope adapter, polar-aligning it is a pain because when you remove the ball head mount and put in the polar scope (and the reverse) you can knock it out of alignment

2) Sightron Nano Tracker - can't handle my 200/2.8 lens

3) iOptron Skyguider - I've read reviews that claim it can't track for >15 seconds at 200mm

4) Sky Adventurer - looks good, and is relatively cheap, but who knows what the periodic error of the thing is....

5) AstroTrac - well-known, good performance, expensive, I'll be nickel-and-dimed (or penny-and-farthing'ed) to death on the accessories

6) Fornax 10 - trying to give the AstroTrac a run for the money, at similar or dearer prices

Are there any other options that I may have missed?

[TheMightyKong]

I don't know about ultralight mounts but enjoy your trip here. Hope the weather holds.

[m.tweedy]

read Paul's review

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/220629-skywatcher-adventurer-mount-first-light/

might help

[orly_andico]

Today seems fairly sunny.. Hopeful. Got the Star Adventurer yesterday from wide-screen.

[m.tweedy]

you will be happy with it. where are you going in the UK

[PNJ]

did you get the counter weight bar and weight

[orly_andico]

No CW and bar. Managed to get about 20 x 2 minutes with a 70-200/2.8 lens @ 200mm in Morecambe. Have had no further effort to use the mount and haven't gotten the images off my DSLR yet.  Seems reasonable (the mount) but engaging and dis-engaging the RA clutch tends to throw the polar alignment off.

When I get back to Singapore I'll adjust the Vixen aluminum tripod for the Polaris to this mount.  I think that will be a much better solution than the Benro A350EX that I've been using (makes the package less airline-portable though).

[orly_andico]

.. also the latitude worm sector drive adjuster, handsome as it seems, has quite a lot of backlash. The concept is nice, the execution not so much.  But then.. the entire mount costs almost as little as a Mach1 Eagle pier extender. So I guess I am really nit-picking.

In my usage, I would just re-align on Polaris after every adjustment (since the worm sector drive backlash and RA clutch tightness would always ruin my polar alignment after I had pointed to a new target).  But back in Singapore this is gonna be an issue, because Polaris is not visible there and getting a good polar alignment is a big pain and something you don't want to do too often.