Astrotrac

Hi all, I'm sorry if this has been mentioned before (you know who you are Frank) but I was wondering what are any of your opinions on the Astrotrac for astrophotgraphy. Reason I ask is that I was away for a week's holidays in the canaries last week (lucky me ) and I would have loved the astrotrac with me with great skies there. I could'nt exactly bring my C8 on the plane.

Is it worth the money?? How long could you get an exposure with say a 200mm lens? Is it really that easy to polat align?

Thanks,

Keith..

:laugh:
I know,
I should be on commission for Richard.
I've answered a few of your questions there in a
review he asked me to do for the astrotrac when I
was in Mt. Parnon.
It's on this page at the bottom,
hope it helps make up your mind.

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


and here is a report of a trip to the Canarys
with the Astrotrac en tow.
Funny stuff at the airport check in for that one.
The only place I was very nearly refused to go
on board wiht it was Shannon! :huh:
on most occasions the operator at the xray will
stop the belt to take a closer look,
it depends on where you are and the operator
but having an asrtro mag handy with an advert for
it in there is a good way to show them what it is
and used for.
www.frankryanjr.com/aadf_2008.htm

Frank,
Have you heard anything on them fixing the polar finder ??

Oh yeah,
how could I forget that!

The magnification on the polar finder is incorrect
and you have to ignore certain markings in the reticle
to align precisely

Even with 'rough' polar alignment it is
still bang on and TBH, the new 'procedure' Richard has come up with
is do-able.

I had awful trouble as you will remember in Greece trying to
figure it out as I thought I was doing something wrong.

This pretty much sums up what the problem was

Frank Ryan wrote: This just about explains it all

www.eanet.com/kodama/astro/equipmnt/polefind/index.htm

(scroll down to ;
Gotcha! #1 -- Wrong Finder Magnification)

I love the line...

These have the problem of incorrect magnification relative to the reticle. In my setup, the two stars end up sitting not in the gaps but on the lines closer to the center (indicated by red spots in the figure 3). If you don't know this, you'll undoubtedly have pulled out some hair trying to figure out why you just can't get the stars to fit.

Indeed!

I have since spoken to Richard and it seems until
the new batch comes in he will continue to sell the
other ones and just modify the instruction booklet.

One other thing,
the new model Astrotrac has lunar / solar tracking also
which would be very handy.

Apart from the slight niggle with the polar scope,
I genuinely can't fault the unit or Richards
after sales service but it comes with a hefty price tag.
You would want to be doing some travelling to get the use of it.

I also bought a second Manfrotto head and mounted my
ETX 125 ota on it (good for all regions bar North due to the
Manfrotto control knobs hitting the unit)and used it as
a simple tracker also.

Thanks for that frank, nice set up there with the etx 125, so hopefully the polar alignment will be a lot easier then before. I'm still very tempted, i'll look at all the links here and save the pennies

Keith..