Total nb help for astrophotography with Nikon Z7

[bluesky_london]

Hello everybody 🫡

Apologies in advance, I presume this question been asked countless times over the years in different ways. 

I have the following setup 

. Nikon Z7

. 24-200 lens

. A sturdy tripod  (https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B0784CW9BT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

I am looking to use the Nikon Z7 for astrophotography, no telescopes yet.

I understand I need a tracking mount, to compensate for earth movements, am I right? 

If yes, what would this wise crowd recommend, considering I have a 200 usd/euros budget. I am based in France. 

Thanks a lot!
Dan

[ONIKKINEN]

Hello and welcome to SGL,

At 200€ you'd probably need to find a second hand tracker of some kind, like a Star adventurer which is 300€+ new (for the mount head only, but you have a tripod so no problem).

But no reason you couldn't do untracked astrophotography at first, with no extra expense, if you set your lens to the shortest focal length and take short enough exposures that trailing is not an issue. There is a simple approximation to how long you can expose for before trailing becomes obvious, which is the 500 rule. Divide 500 by your focal length to get the maximum exposure time, which at 24mm would be just under 21 seconds which is not too bad.