Sagittarius to Carina, 3 panel mosaic with home made tracker.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Hi,

This is the first outing with my compact barn door tracker since I fitted the drive motor.
It was a real pain to turn by hand!
Anyway, it does the job well and exactly what I wanted it for - wide field.

The tracker is light and as simple as I could make it.
These panels are 2 minute each at ISO 1600 at 25mm f/5, canon 18 to 55 kit lens, with the Canon 1100D.

The mount itself was roughly aligned using a compass, spirit level and protractor.

Quite chuffed with it really. :)

Cheers,

Justin.

[multiweb]

This is a superb shot. Well done on the tracker. Awesome result. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Marc!

Looking forward to taking the tracker and camera on holidays, especially to Parks and Siding Springs.
Can't wait to take some shots with these icons in the foreground.

Cheers,

Justin.

[cometcatcher]

Awesome shot! I haven't used my barn door for ages, but it's hand powered.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Kevin!

The old barn door design still has it uses, especially with a motor to drive it. :)

Cheers,

Justin.

[MrB]

Nice work Justin!
Yep the barn door is still a valid tool. The Astrotrac is the perfect example of how good a barn door type tracker can be ;)

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Simon!

Yep the astrotrac is a good piece of kit, but being the tight ..s I am had to make it myself.:rolleyes:

Cheers,

Justin.

[MrB]

Trust me, I'm a tight ..s too!
I had made a start on building myself a tracker a couple of years ago for a two week trip to dark skies, but, time was fast running out as the trip date drew closer. The opportunity then arose to grab a used AT at a reasonable price as a quick fix, which was ultimately too tempting to ignore.
I will eventually get around to finishing that project ;)

[Regulus]

Clever, and an excellent result.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Look forward to seeing you tracker when finished.:thumbsup:



Thanks Trevor!

Cheers,

Justin.

[RickS]

That's a great mosaic, Justin! I look forward to future images with the same kit.

I built a barn door tracker back in the days of film cameras. Much easier to get good results with a DSLR :)

Cheers,
Rick.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

\

Thanks Rick!

Me too, built two of of them, a normal barn door and a trot double arm which I fitted a geared down wind screen wiper motor.
Both were quite heavy.
As you say, a lot easier with a DSLR. :thumbsup:

Cheers,

Justin.

[CJ]

Most impressive all round!

[MrB]

Yup!
Photo of my old hand cranked film-era barn door here: http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showpost.php?p=385169&postcount=14

Was over engineered with wooden tripod, alt-az adjustments for polar aligning and a mod to double exposure lengths. But it did the job. The ball head was cheap and nasty tho.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Chris!:thumbsup:



Yep, a lot of fun making these beasties.:)

So I had to dig out my old photo's and found the image of my trott double arm, from 1992. Supposedly accurate for 50 minutes.
Although never achieved anything like this.

Cheers,

Justin.

[astronobob]

Your a Legend Justin, , Mighty fine Pano work mate, I can see you overtasking the 'All Sky Servo, Rig before too long :P ;)
Reall nice going :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Cheers Bob!:thumbsup:

Good fun doing some pano's, especially with simple gear.

Cheers,

Justin.

[Joshua Bunn]

That's a top result Justin. I like your homemade star tracker to. :thumbsup:

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Joshua!:)

Cheers,

Justin.

[gregbradley]

Great work and incredible innovation. One tip, the purple stars is chromatic aberration from the lens. You can simply reduce purple in Photoshop or use the chromatic aberration tool in your DSLR processing software like Lightroom or Canon DDP.

Greg.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Thanks Greg!

Trying to keep it simple for travel, and thanks for the info.

Cheers,

Justin.