[Russman (Russ)]

Originally Posted by Saturn%5

Hi Russ
Been looking as well seems to be a new one on the market, Have a look at this one Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer, I think the price is not bad $499 everything kit and seem to produce good results.I think i will give it a try.

cheers
Graeme

Thanks Graeme, I think I'm leaning towards the astrotrac + accessories at the moment, but I will look into the Sky watcher.

Originally Posted by traveller

Hi russ,
I live in Preston and have a ioptron sky tracker.
Feel free to borrow it and get a feel of it if you like.
Pm me if you want to take up the offer.
Bo

Hi Bo. My friend has an iOptron, it doesn't seem to be working at the moment though, when its fixed I'll borrow his. Thanks for the kind offer though!

Originally Posted by mbaddah

If you want to shoot at 800mm then there's only one option you have, and that's the Astrotrac with the complete kit, i.e. pier, wedge, and head. It will cost you about the same price as a heq5pro. The question then become portability (Astrotrac) vs capacity (Heq5pro) ?

Cheers, I'd probably lean towards the astrotrac, but will look into the Heq5pro, portability is probably an important factor for me!.

Originally Posted by andyc

Hi Russ, I have the Skytracker, and I can give you a little information that might help your decision (I posted it first on Shelley's Polarie thread):

I've been using the Skytracker for a few months now, and having a lot of fun with it. If you want, you can look at my photo albums via my sig to see what I've managed with it - imaging Pluto at 250mm, or some decent deep sky 100mm and 250mm shots are possible (with stars detected to 17th/18th mag at a dark site). The polar scope is a massive plus with the Skytracker - my set-up time is minimal (5-10mins max) with the polar scope and "Polar Finder" app, and then the alignment errors are much less (negligible, really) than the periodic error in the drive. Azimuth alignment is more fiddly on the Skytracker than altitude but my tripod compensates for that.

I've measured my PE at 48", in a roughly sinusoidal peak-to-peak, with 2-3minute stationary points on either side of the oscillation. For exposure times, at the moment I'm limited to 2-minute exposures @250mm (EOS 60D), and I'll reject >50% of those shots due to PE trailing. At 100mm with 3-minute exposures, I'll reject <33% of frames due to PE. I don't reject many frames at all for polar alignment errors. So periodic error will severely limit you on focal lengths much bigger than 250mm with the Skytracker, unless you're lucky and get a much better one than mine. The weight of a really big lens might also be too much?

Thanks Andy, some great info, definitely some food for thought! and great pics in your gallery too!!!! I have the polar finder app, I did borrow a mates skytracker recently but it wasn't working, The mount wouldn't rotate, hes taking it back to the shop to get repaired, I'll borrow his when he gets it back to try it out before I go on a massive spending spree! I don't know how the iOptron will cope with my 800mm lens, it's only a samyang f8.0 mirror so its not very heavy, might be OK??