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Skywatcher Adventurer mount, first light

PNJ

By PNJ
in Discussions - Mounts

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Stuart_S

Stuart_S

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has anyone tried the Star Adventurer with a larger prime?  

I'm considering getting the Adventurer and would like to have the possibility of using a 500mm f/4 with a Canon 5Diii.  I'm guessing a decent gem would be more suitable but the Adventurer looks quite appealing!

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orly_andico

orly_andico

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The star adventurer is already shaky/marginal with the Lomo 80mm, which weighs about 4kg (5kg with camera). It won't balance with the supplied weight, I had to add an extra weight from an old EQ1. The Lomo 80mm is about 16" long. So compare that to the 500/4 which is probably longer.

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Stuart_S

Stuart_S

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The star adventurer is already shaky/marginal with the Lomo 80mm, which weighs about 4kg (5kg with camera). It won't balance with the supplied weight, I had to add an extra weight from an old EQ1. The Lomo 80mm is about 16" long. So compare that to the 500/4 which is probably longer.

Thanks, I was guessing the counter would need to be more than its standard 1Kg!

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griz11

griz11

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I almost ordered one of those. But the lenses I wanted to use made the weight right on the limit. The only two trackers I found that will swing a big telephoto is the astrotrac or losmandy. Both will handle 30lbs. Good thing I went with the greater weight capacity too because its grown to 20lbs of gear on it now. When I was looking at them they looked a lot better than the vixen or ioptron to me. And you can use it for timelapse as well. Double the weight capacity and more versitile than those and not much more expensive. I saw some posts where people had run pempro on the periodic error and they are decent trackers. A guy on the Canon forum posted some exceptional images taken with one the other day. I think he had a 200mm lens on that one. Things sure tighten up as you add more focal length. With my 40mm I can just point the thing somewhat north and it works fine. With the 400mm it has to be spot on in the scope and refined a bit for really long exposures. Longest I've done unguided is 10 minutes and it was great. Now I have a guider so I can get some really long exposures and narrowband. I had a big rig before and like a DSLR and tracker much better. I found out something interesting last night about camera lenses vs telescopes. The arguement is that the camera lens has too many elements and looses too much light because of it. So I decided to go research this a bit. Tak makes great astrographs so I looked at one of their top of the line imaging refractors. It has 5 elements. The 400mm f5.6 I have has 6. So the only real difference is slightly larger front element on the telescope for triple plus the price. If you stay away from IS and zooms the element count isn't that much different. When you add in field flatteners to the telescopes it gets even closer. Guess what the camera lens has the field flattener in it already :)

Griz

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orly_andico

orly_andico

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Actually I would disagree...

I have used two camera lenses with my Star Adventurer.. a Canon 180mm macro (14 elements!) and a 70-200 f2.8 non-IS (18 elements)

Neither of these lenses, wide-open, could match the performance of my lowly Stellarvue SV80ED with a Televue TRF2008.  The telescope simply had sharper, tighter stars and less CA.

Of course, the camera lenses are faster (f3.5 and f2.8, versus f5.6 for the telescope + reducer combo).

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griz11

griz11

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You have 3 times the number of elements in the lens vs the telescope of course its going to be less light in that case. If you loose x photons per lens element and the lens and telescope are close to the same number even equal explain how the camera lens is going to loose more photons than the telescope. The amount of light lost at each lens inteface doesn't vary wildly depending on if its in a telescope or a camera lens. I'm not putting down telescopes you are the one that called it lowly I'm just trying to dispel a myth. That myth generalizes all camera lenses as bad for AP because they they have tons of elements vs few for a telescope. And as is the case with most generalizations its just not true. You can find camera lenses with element counts that are right in there with the finest telescopes. So the generalzation is false. I shot this with my tracker and camera lens the first night I had it outside.

Orion55-2.jpg

I think its a pretty good start. If a telescope will make a better image doesn't enter into it. The fact that its good enough to encourage me to keep going does. And the cost wasn't high enough that it felt like a big risk. If I get to the point that I can't get any more out of what I have and decide I want to stay with it I'll get something else. My mount will handle 30lbs plenty enough for any refractor out there if I feel the need to upgrade. Any skills or knowledge I pick up using the camera lens and DSLR doesn't go away if I do switch to a telescope so I fail to see the need to get one right off. I want people to see my stuff and say hey I have a camera and lens I can do that and go try. I don't want to discourage anyone from trying. To me that is beyond stupid. Every person that decides they don't want to try this decreases the market growth which infulences companies to get into the market which provides us with newer and better products and more choice. So why on earth would you ever want to discourage anyone from trying? If they try and get some good results you know what's going to happen. They are going to buy more gear trying to get better and better show their work to their friends with cameras and suddenly that one person is 5 or 10 new people in the hobby. Everyone wins. If someone posted they were going to try to image with a paper towel tube and a lens they found in the garage I wouldn't discourage them. Let them try they are going to learn something. If they fail suggest a path to success but don't discourage their attempt to learn something.

Griz

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Davey-T

Davey-T

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Have to agree Griz, lot's of disparaging remarks about DSLR imaging but some fantastic results given the relative simplicity of a camera lens setup.

I know folks insist it's quicker to take LRGBHaO111S11 and get "better" results but each to his own.

I do both and have no axe to grind in either camp.

Dave

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happy-kat

happy-kat

Posted
Posted

If someone posted they were going to try to image with a paper towel tube and a lens they found in the garage I wouldn't discourage them. Let them try they are going to learn something. If they fail suggest a path to success but don't discourage their attempt to learn something.

Griz

This is so true
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Davey-T

Davey-T

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As the sky was a bit Moony last night I decided to have a go at aligning the Polar scope on the SW S'Adventurer as it was way out, this is the second one as the first one was returned with a problem, on the first one the Polar scope was perfectly aligned out of the box.

Didn't take long to discover the design was as rubbish as previous Polar scopes I've had to pieces in that the only thing holding the reticle in place is the eyepiece and once this is unscrewed to focus there's nothing stopping the reticle sliding back down the polar scope, as it's aimed at Polaris, once you loosen the grub screws.

All that is needed is an O ring jammed against the reticle and it works perfectly, just aligned it in ten minutes tonight after wasting an hour on it last night.

Just need the clouds to go away now to try it :)

Dave

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  • 2 weeks later...
technophil

technophil

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Hello!  :grin:

10 years of photography... but this is my first test for astro-photography!

5FtvuK.jpg

Full image: http://img673.imageshack.us/img673/1500/lILKWD.jpg

Single shot, 70 s, f/7.1, ISO 800, 300mm, EOS 6D + EF 28-300 L + SkyWatcher Star Adventurer + Omegon Pro Alu Tripod 8kg.

Camera + lens weight: 2,5kg more or less
Max mount payload: 4kg
Image editing: crop frame at 3000x2000 pixels and then interpolation at 5000x3333 pixels. 
Software: Mac Os 10.10.2 + Canon Digital Photo Professional 4.1.50 
I think that the SkyWatcher Star Adventurer is a very nice & good mount auto guider, at 300mm you can expose around 120 sec in order to be fully safe!  :grin:
Tonight I will try at 120 sec and 1600/3200 ISO! 
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griz11

griz11

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I've had both kinds of set-ups too. And having had both kinds I can say its much more likely you will stick with it if you start out giving your self the best advantage to get shots that are going to keep you coming back for more. The camera lens and DSLR are that combination. Everything is so much more relaxed. You can go get yourself a nifty 50 and go for it working up to longer and longer lenses as your skills improve. Think of it that way as a system to ease into AP with decent results along the way to keep your interest up. Its not easy to make great AP shots. I've read in more than one place that its the hardest kind of photography to master. So why jump into that with both feet. With all the trackers out there now you can get to it for what you'd spend for a weekend somewhere. Think about it a kid with a part time weekend job can get into AP now. Much earlier than people of my generation by decades. When they hit midlife and have money to spend they will demand equipment that is much better than is available now. Everyone wins. Just saw that Nikon is putting out an astro variant. All these people getting into the hobby with DSLR's are driving this. And once the big boys get fully into the market everything is going to get better. With their abilities to design and build custom chips they will push everything forward. Go dig up the numbers on people with DSLR's vs people with purpose built astro cameras. No comparison and thats what the big guys are looking at. There is a huge difference in someone that can integrate existing parts to build a camera and someone that can design the thing from the ground up and produce it. The advent of inexpensive trackers and DSLR's to this hobby will be even bigger than ccd's and computerized mounts were in driving the technology and bringing more people into the fold.

Phil you should find out the place in the ISO's where it switches over from analog amp of the signal to mathematics in the chip. On Canons its usually 1600. After that you are just reducing the headroom for high signals and you can do the same thing in post processing. Some Canon's have two stages of amp vs math so you can go higher without squeezing your dynamic range.

Griz

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brrttpaul

brrttpaul

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I have used my star adventurer roughly 7 times now (complete newbie), I have to say the learning curve is steep for me and im positive i,m doing something wrong but I do manage to take photos and it does track so maybe its that simple and im just paranoid lol. Someone asked did anyone use large primes I have used my 300mm 2.8 prime on it and it seems ok to me

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 10 months later...
lenadam

lenadam

Posted
Posted

Just setting up my Star Adventurer. Two things:

1. Polar Alignment Scope -  How do I rotate the reticle so that 6 is at the bottom? The alignment is fine - I can rotate through 360 degrees on the RA axis and the cross remains centred on a daytime object (end of next doors TV aerial). I can rotate the RA axis to rotate the reticle but how do I rotate the reticle with respect to the RA axis. The manual is not the best that I have seen. I am being careful before I loosen too many screws and do not want to disturb the alignment! The 6 on the "clock" is about 45 degrees away from the bottom when I am centred on the pole.

2. I have the "Fine Tuning Mounting Assembly" (dec bracket) and want to  clip the Polar Scope Illuminator  into that. There is a video on You Tube (

) that shows the illuminator being clipped into a little plastic adaptor that clips into the dovetail bar slot but cannot trace this item in the UK. There is a US link but I can't locate it on that website.  With this I could check polar alignment with the camera still attached. Does anyone know where I could get one? 

Any guidance really appreciated.

Len

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Davey-T

Davey-T

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Simply loosen the RA clutch and rotate to get six at the bottom, to fit the illuminator with the dovetail attached just take a flat file to the slot and open it out until the illuminator fits.

Dave

Edit: Polaris should be set as per some PA app, not in the centre

post-21198-0-56787700-1452085211_thumb.j

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lenadam

lenadam

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Simply loosen the RA clutch and rotate to get six at the bottom, to fit the illuminator with the dovetail attached just take a flat file to the slot and open it out until the illuminator fits.

Dave

Edit: Polaris should be set as per some PA app, not in the centre

attachicon.gifModded-dovetail.jpg

Dave - thanks for the prompt response. On the first issue of the offset reticle I have put a telescope on the mount to illustrate the problem -see  the image. I would expect the telescope / counterbalance shaft to be aligned in the vertical plane (yellow line) when the 6 on the reticle is at the bottom - this is what I get.  It seems that all I need to do is rotate the reticle in relation to the axis somehow. I use Polarscope Align Pro to get the position of Polaris and thus the position of the pole - it is great in that with this app you can select the reticle for your particular polarscope as I show in the other image.

Reticle1

On the other issue of the illuminator I had spotted the filing option online elsewhere but was impressed by the plastic "interface" solution. Thanks again

Len

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Alien 13

Alien 13

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Posted

The alignment of the RA axis (your scope) is completely arbitary and makes no difference, remember you are aligning the mount axis not the scope.

I have an EQ3-2 with polarscope and the scope can end up in some very odd positions when setting up.

Alan

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  • 1 month later...
jimjam11

jimjam11

Posted
Posted
On 10 July 2014 at 00:31, PNJ said:

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

Do you mean you leave the battery inserted and just lower the brightness fully? With the battery cap screwed on mine still glows very faintly so the only way I can stop the battery draining is to physically remove it. A very minor gripe given how good everything else is, but this does seem like a bit of a design flaw...

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