First Light - Sightron Nano-Tracker

[CraigT82]

Today I took delivery of a Sightron Nano-tracker bought through the classifieds here (thanks Dobbie!), it was pretty clear tonight so I thought I'd set it up on my heavily light polluted balcony and see what it can do.

I stuck it on my new Astropro 187 tripod, also bought through the classifieds (thanks hobsey!) mounted my Sony a290 with 18-55 kit lens and pointed it Vega. Polar aligning the tracker is done by sighting through a peephole in it's body, which seems a bit crude at first but I soon got the hang of it and I think I got it fairly well aligned. I've ordered a green laser pen with the idea of briefly shining it through the peephole to get a better idea of where it's pointing without squinting through the little hole.

First off I took a 2 min exposure at 55mm at f5.6 with the tracker switched off for reference (the first pic below. Both these pics are 100% crops.).  This equates to 84mm FL on a full frame sensor.  I was quite chuffed to see that a plane had passed in front of Vega with surgical precision!

Next pic is with the tracking on, also 2 mins at 55m f5.6. As you can see theres not a lot of trailing (though the focus is a bit off).  I'm very pleased with this as the instruction manual for the tracker says that a max FL of 33mm should be used (50mm on full frame).

I've bought the tracker for some milky way imaging when I go on holiday to Australia and Tasmania in January, and I'll mostly be using a 14mm f2.8 I've bought specifically for the purpose.  I'm now very encouraged that with this little tracker I'll get 5-10 minute exposures with the 14mm and really be able to really make the most of the super dark Tasmanian skies

[CraigT82]

Update:

Have now managed to get 4 minute exposures with a 50mm lens on the nano tracker - I'm very impressed with it!

I used a drinking straw to make it easier to use the peephole for decent polar alignment, seems work quite well.  I also experimented with shining a green laser through the peephole to see where it's pointing but that's not very accurate at all after a bit of testing.

Pick of a 4 min exposure of vega.  Canon 700D and 50mm f1.8.