Star adventurer or AZ goto?

[bish]

Hi,

I was thinking of having a dabble in some low cost astro phtotography. I have an 1100d , 50mm and 70-300 lens I could use, so thought I might get a star adventurer. My 127mm mak is on an AZ goto, which I could mount my camera on, but don"t know if it would be as good as the star adventurer.

As an aside, would the mak/mount be OK for planetary/lunar if I got a celestron nexstar or similar.

Thanks

Bish

[happy-kat]

Hi

The altaz mount tracks the object by tiny left right up down movement which keeps the object in the field of view, but this isn't following the earth's rotation. In imaging terms this means there's a finite time before star trails appear. With your camera and lens you could start imaging with the mount you have, you'll have to work within the capabilities available and this particularly applies to deep space objects where long exposures are used. Planets on the other hand are fine as generally we would take fast videos.

So you could start now with what you have using the 127mm mak on planets, turn removing it and using your camera on DSOs from 15-45 seconds exposures. https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/228101-the-no-eq-dso-challenge

A star adventure tracks equatorially so longer exposures with a camera are possible on DSO, but you wouldn't use it for planets really. There is a thread for this mount here. https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/303949-imaging-with-a-star-adventurer

Then for similar price there's the az-gti with potential eq capability with firmware update.

[bish]

15 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

Hi

The altaz mount tracks the object by tiny left right up down movement which keeps the object in the field of view, but this isn't following the earth's rotation. In imaging terms this means there's a finite time before star trails appear. With your camera and lens you could start imaging with the mount you have, you'll have to work within the capabilities available and this particularly applies to deep space objects where long exposures are used. Planets on the other hand are fine as generally we would take fast videos.

So you could start now with what you have using the 127mm mak on planets, turn removing it and using your camera on DSOs from 15-45 seconds exposures. https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/228101-the-no-eq-dso-challenge

A star adventure tracks equatorially so longer exposures with a camera are possible on DSO, but you wouldn't use it for planets really. There is a thread for this mount here. https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/303949-imaging-with-a-star-adventurer

Then for similar price there's the az-gti with potential eq capability with firmware update.

Many thanks. That is really helpful.

[happy-kat]

The star adventurer would be better than your existing mount with your camera and lens because it tracks equatorially for DSO, I forgot to answer your specific question. Though it doesn't mean you couldn't start with what you already own and see how far you get, you'll see quite a few users of your mount on that thread.

[johngm]

Or the other option would be to purchase the AZ-GTI mount and you can have the best of both worlds. Upload the EQ software for it, and get the EQ Wedge. I have the star adventurer and the AZ-GTI and i am only using the GTI now, because i can connect it to my Laptop and run it via an EQDIR cable.

John

[Tomatobro]

The star adventurer is quite a good mount. I have a guide scope that I first put in the dovetail and use Sharpcap's polar alignment tool to Polar align then move it to a clamp on the counterweight shaft and use PHD2 for guiding. I find that this setup gives remarkable results.

To find objects I use plate solving.

It shows what can be done but I admit its not a setup for beginners. My setup is based on the SA Pro kit so it came with a wedge.

SA pro guided with an ED72.  60 frames using Sharpcaps live stack and save 870 seconds total time

Edited October 13, 2020 by Tomatobro
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