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Old 03-09-2014, 04:56 PM
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Retrograde (Pete)
a.k.a. @AstroscapePete

Retrograde is online now
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Sydney
Posts: 1,637
Alpine Labs Radian TL Motion Controller has arrived.

I had been on their mailing list for a few months and then got notified that a batch of 1000 was ready for sale so I decided to snap one up. It would be a competitor to the Astro TL Motion Controller that a couple of IIS members have.

It has ready support for my DSLR (Pentax K-5) which is vital and it wasn't too expensive - around $300 shipped. It comes with a cable for your camera, a phone/tablet cable, a USB cable for charging (not shown), a soft protective cover, a small bubble-level and a very basic instruction booklet.

The weather here in Sydney has of course been abysmal ever since it arrived but last Friday I got a chance to try it out for the first time.

I downloaded the iPad app, put in a simple program and set it up on my balcony. It did seem to want to run some sort of default program at first but after I persisted a bit I got my test program uploaded and away it went.



The test is a 15 degree rotation in 40 minutes using a reasonably chunky 50-135mm tele zoom at around 100mm fl, with frames every 5 seconds. The instructions say it needs to be set up completely level (my test set-up wasn't quite level) and it can apparently be used for vertical panning as well with an L-bracket. You can put a tripod head between the Radian and your camera for different camera angles.

Anyway can't wait to try it under dark skies.
The box and contents are in the attached pic:
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