Portable setup for AP

[TheCrazyRam]

Greetings amazing Stargazers Community!

As this is my first post here on the forum, I wanted to say hello and thank you all for your posts here. They have been a precious source of information for some time. 

I would like to check with you if this kind of astrophoto setup makes sense for you. In general, I'm looking for something that could be described as "grab and go" setup as I do not have a way to do AP in the place I live. Usually, when there is an occasion to do AP, it means that we are going out of the city whole family. Having small car and stroller that needs to go to the trunk gives me little space for "my things". So the primary goal is portability, not the objects that I want to see/capture by this setup. Especially, that this is going to be my first setup, therefore, it should give me fun for a lot of time.

That being said, the setup I thought about is as below:
- SW Star Adventurer or iOptron Skyguider Pro
- Manfrotto mt055cxpro4
- Nikon d7200 with 70-200 f2.8
- SW ED80 in near future

What do you think about it? Does it make sense? As far as I've read above could allow me to do both visual and AP with the focus on the latter. 

The thing I also wanted to ask about is the difference between SW SA and iOptron Skyguider Pro. There is a lot of the material about SW, but not much about iOptron. Does anyone saw both in action? Which one is better? Which one would you choose? 

Thank you very much for your time.

Regards,
Arkadiusz

[SteveNickolls]

Hi Arkadiusz,

Thanks for your post and a warm welcome to SGL.

I'm sure you will get a lot of assistance over your questions from the folks on SGL. I can vouch for the Star Adventurer (SA) mount having used one since April this year. There should be a lot of information on SGL to help you specifically with this mount, with set up, polar alignment etc. I can't help you over the iOptron mount unfortunately. How heavy is the intended telescope-SW ED80? Many people think well of using the WO Zenithstar 61. The payload maximum for the SA is 5kg. If you are intent on using the camera with the telescope the focal length will require you to use an auto-guider and remember the SA tracks only in RA.

Anyway that's my contribution Arkadiusz.

Good luck with your observing and imaging.

Best regards,
Steve

[John78]

An ED80 will squash the SA by the time it's got a camera on the end, 60mm scopes are ok zs61 as mentioned above being probably the most sought after short refractor on sale at the moment.

[newbie alert]

Agreed..a 60-70mm frac is about the limit on the S.A.  a 80ed will be too heavy to balance,especially with a camera on the end..needs a heq5/avx payload capacity 

[TheCrazyRam]

Thank you for your responses. 

SW ED80 is 2.5kg so with camera included I'm below 3,5 kg mark. I thought that with a counterweight attached this would be good for SW SA as this is way below 5 kg capacity limit.

Is there anyone on this forum who is using iOptron Skyguider Pro? I'd really love to hear some opinions about this mount. 

I will definitely give more attention to WO Z61 now and take it upon consideration.