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Anyone know what AstroTrac are up to?

RobertI

By RobertI
in The Astro Lounge

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RobertI

RobertI

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Astrotrac website is showing a countdown (below), presumably to a big product launch? They don't seem to have released any new products in recent times so I am expecting that this is something they have been working on for a long time. Given the rate at which Skywatcher release new products, I imagine AstroTrac would have to be certain theirs is novel and has a market, so will be very interested to see what it is..... 

 

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Alien 13

Alien 13

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Interesting, I might be reading too much into that Logo but to me it suggests tracking in RA and Dec over a full circle rather than a small segment and possible with an ALT AZ option too but that would be too common so no idea what the "breakthrough" is.

It would be great if it was a lightweight DSLR tracking platform though Ideally ALT AZ with a built in field rotator to keep the overall form factor small and do away with any need for counterweights.

Alan.

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RobertI

RobertI

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Interesting, I hadn’t really looked at the logo, does suggest something along those lines. To me their USP was a tracking design giving almost zero periodic error and very accurate tracking. Unfortunately this only seems to be an advantage if you have very accurate polar alignment and reasonably long focal length? I’m wondering if they have managed  to incorporate their USP into an EQ or Altaz design of some sort?

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melsky

melsky

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Countdown ends at 1am tomorrow so it will be announced on the 31st March not April 1st. Really excited to see what Richard has come up with, I've been using an Astrotrac TT320X-AG since they came out and it’s been one of my most used pieces of kit.

The GEM with inbuilt guiding they showed at astrofest a few years ago never appeared and I enquired many times to find out when that would be available, I'm guessing this new device is something completely different and operated from a smartphone would be my guess.

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RobertI

RobertI

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Well it certainly looks like a beautifully engineered piece of kit. I've studied the pictures to try and work out the configurations and there seem to be some very clever innovations. You can convert it from a standard EQ config with counterweights to a config without counterweights where the scope sits over the axis of polar rotation, a bit like the Avalon M-Uno. I wonder whether in this configuration, it can also be turned into an alt-az mount? I reckon this, combined with the friction drives, makes it pretty unique proposition, and there should be a good market for it. Looking forward to seeing some reviews. :)

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