How to outfit the Sky-Watcher Virtuoso for long exposure astrophotography?

[MCH2]

I am thinking of buying the Sky-Watcher Virtuoso to take a video of the upcoming transit of Mercury.  I also wanted something I could use for long exposure pictures of nebulae, etc.  I think I would need an equatorial wedge or something similar, but am not sure what.  Any ideas for products that are not incredibly expensive that could use with this mount?

 

[MattJenko]

for bright deep space objects, I would use a cmos based camera and take multiple 5-10 second exposures (as in hundreds of them) and track as best you can. you can then align and trim the edges and you should be able to get something to be happy with. 

[happy-kat]

The current firmware on the virtuoso mount does not support use of the mount on a wedge to equatorially track to enable exposures minutes long.

However it has not been tried setting the Mount's latitude to 0 and then using the mount on a wedge (something similar was tried when using with a goto handset).

Depending on budget the Az-GTI may suit you better, as with a free firmware update that mount then offers tracking in eq mode when used with a wedge or can be used in alt az.

 

[happy-kat]

A planet transit video may well be within the exposure range of tracking in alt-az before field rotation becomes apparent. The longer the focal length the shorter the exposure if tracking in alt-az before field rotation is evident.