After a long time off... mount or tracker

[BillPickle]

Hi everyone. I used to do some astrophotography years ago. 

At the time I used an 80mm refractor and dslr on a star adventurer and had a basic autoguiding setup with my laptop.  

I since sold the tracker but still have the scope. 

My question...

I was looking at the latest star adventurer which then got me looking at scopes and mounts etc. I always remembered fancying the 130pds so I know I would need a mount suitable for this and from memory rhe eq5 was the bare minimum required. 

For the most part I'll be using my little 80mm refractor for now and my Sony a7iii with lenses for wide field messing about.

Would an eq5 with the dual motor add on do the same star tracking job I'm looking for as the star adventurer with the possibility of maybe adding a 130 scope in the future? Or would I be better off just getting the star adventurer for the 80mm and camera or the eq5. 

The 130 scope is an after thought but even for visual use I'm sure the eq5 might have its benefits. 

I have plenty of really solid tri pods for large format 8x10 photography I can use for the star adventurer so it's not the tripod I'm concerned about it's really just the mount and its ability to give me 90-120 seconds exposures at a push for now without extra guidance.

 

Sorry for the long winded post but I cannot find a specific answer to this and I'm really keen to hear your opinions.

 

Thanks

Iain

[PhilB61]

Depends primarily on what focal length and pixel size you will be imaging as to whether it will work, and also your expectations. Without guiding I think either will struggle to image reliably much beyond 30s with a focal length above about 200-300mm, and that assumes a mount in good condition and very accurately polar aligned. I also think the Star adventure has too low a weight capacity given that you already mentioned an upgraded telescope in the possibly near future.

[Elp]

A mount head will give you far more flexibility for future proofing than a tracker. In this day and age, if imaging there's no reason not to get a goto mount, though most imagers autoguide due to the better reliability and more accurate guiding.