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New portable setup!


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Hi everyone!

 

After researching and reading up on all things astro for the last 12 months, I have finally taken the plunge and upgraded my modest setup from a Skytracker Pro to a SkyGuider Pro!

Portability is key for me at this time in my life and that's why I've gone down this route rather than jumping in with an HEQ5 or EQ6-R and a larger scope. I will be able to fit this all in a backpack when it's dismantled, and take it on holidays via aircraft.

After playing with the setup for many hours (plus a few trips to screwfix), I have finally figured out a way to mount both my main 'scope' and guide scope at the same time, whilst maintaining balance.

The finder-guider is connected to a 200mm arca-swiss plate via a lightweight ballhead, and the main camera is mounted using a rubber-lined pipe clip, as I don't have the tripod collar for this lens, and attaching it straight to the camera has induced some tilt in the past. Both of these sit on a fluid panorama head, which I bought as I have heard about a lot of people have difficulties when using the included declination bracket with this mount. 

In order to find balance, I have attached a spare ballhead that I had lying around (~350g) to the end of the counterweight shaft, as the shaft is just too short to get balanced without it.

In total, the camera end of the setup weighs 3.16kg, which is well under the rated load of 5kg for this mount, so I am hopeful that the results will be good!

Of course, since I got all the gear on Monday it has been cloudy every night, but I am eager to get out under the stars to give the new setup a whirl!

Any tips for a first time guided astrophotography run would be much appreciated :)

 

Main specs are:

Mount - iOptron SkyGuider Pro

Main imaging camera - Canon 6D

Main lens / 'scope' - Tamron 100-400mm f/4.5-6.3

Guide scope - Skywatcher 9x50 finder scope

Guide camera - ASI 224MC

 

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