Astrotrac Travelset

Somebody had ones of these at solarfest ? does anyone remember who it was?

Id like to ask them a few questions

www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_inf...d-and-ball-head.html

manic_dave wrote: Somebody had ones of these at solarfest ? does anyone remember who it was?

Id like to ask them a few questions

www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_inf...d-and-ball-head.html

John Flannery has one and I think he had it at Solarfest.
I'll email him to let him know about this thread.

Michael.

THanks Michael.

hi guys,

John Flannery here ...

That's an excellent price for the Astrotrac kit -- especially when the polar scope alone is about £110 and a good tripod will set you back similar or more too.

Michael dropped me a PM about the thread but I'm not on the IFAS forum that often these days. Feel free to drop me a note though to the e-mail address quoted in my signature below.

I purchased the Astrotrac in the US last May but have not used it yet. The weather, mid-Summer twilight, various family members home from abroad, and the need to pick up a decent tripod has meant not taking any images so far. I have a couple of days off around New Moon in mid-September and fingers-crossed it will be an opportunity to try the Astrotrac under dark skies.

I have a Canon 550D (unmodded) with the standard 18-55mm kit lens but, as someone said in a similar thread in the Astronomy forum on Boards.ie, astrophotography will become a money pit. I'd like to acquire a couple of good lenses and also get the camera modded some time.

I guess the last couple of months though I've been reading up a bit on astrophotography techniques and looking at a lot of the images in the DSLR forum on www.cloudynights.com to get an idea of how others take good images.

I also recommend reading the material on www.astropix.com/INDEX.HTM ... I bought the two astrophotography books on CD off Jerry a while ago.

Michael and I were chatting about camera platforms on Sunday, including alternatives to the Astrotrac.

Currently, I know of the following Astrotrac alternatives:

Vixen Polarie
Takahashi TeeGul Sky Patrol III
Kenko Skymemo
Vixen Optics GP2 Photo Guider
Toast Pro (info on this is in Japanese only)
Losmandy Starlapse
Fornax 10 (made in Hungary)

At the end of the day though, a lot of people have said that a good motorised equatorial mount will do the same job as an Astrotrac. The Astrotrac's main selling point is portability. If that's not a concern then I'd plumb for an EQ mount or similar.

talk soon,

john

THanks for that John, portability is the main thing. I was wondering what kind of weight this mount could handle. And how good the tracking is with/out a guide scope

Hi Manic Dave (John also!)
I've not been round here in a while also...

I've owned the Astrotrac and I could not recommend it highly enough!

The major selling points are;
Incredibly accurate tracking for long periods out of the factory and even better with PEC.
Solar / sidereal rates.
Can take heavy OTA's - Cameras / lenses with ease (Unofficially 20KG! - tested by Richard from AT at the TSP a few years back)
Portable - it' very lightweight for such a robust / accurate bit of kit.

Just a few points,
if all you want is a 'beauty' shot - eg milky way over some lake or something..
then there are alternatives as the lads say.
The AT allows for such precise tracking that you can get fantastic images of DSO's with just a good lens / camera
or as I have done Mounted an ETX125 OTA on it.
I also used it for lunar work & for capturing the ISS crossing the sun... all with the etx.

The package TS are offering is outstanding value!
Easily half the price of all the bits I paid for a few years back AND that was the first gen AT.

I did a review for Richard back then...
It's on the bottom of this page...
a few pics there also..

Any Q's just ask and I'll be glad to answer..

ATB
F

www.astrotrac.com/Default.aspx?p=successes