Which star tracker to buy?

[Russman]

Hi everyone.

I'm looking into purchasing a star tracker to mount my 6D on for astrophotography.

There's a few options out there, all a bit pricey so I want to make sure I get the right one.

I'll be shooting everywhere from 14mm up to 800mm.

So far I've looked at Vixen, iOptron & Astrotrac. Have I missed any? Which one would best suit my needs?

Cheers.

[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

[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

[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) ?

[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 (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=124567)):

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?

[Russman]

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



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! :)



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



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?? :question:

[Joshua Bunn]

Hi Russ,
How about this https://www.ioptron.com/index.cfm?select=productdetails&phid=68425a32-7913-4ebd-b279-0a7b815e0f07

From Ioptron, about the same price as a skytracker amazingly, but portability for you...? i dont know about.

Josh

[Russman]

ooooooooohh. :eyepop: Looks like a contender!! I'll look into that one for sure!!

Thanks Josh!:thumbsup:

[lazjen]

I notice some of these suggested trackers support auto-guiding. Does anyone use that at all? If so, what's your setup for it?

[MrB]

I have used the autoguide on my Astrotrac with both the QHY5 with PHD and with the LVI standalone guider, both worked fine with the ST80 mounted side-by-side with my SV80ED.
Guiding on the Astrotrac is RA only, but I'm working on a DEC guiding attachment, eventually I will finish that :rolleyes:

[Russman]

Can anyone recommend a good reliable Australian dealer for an iOptron Skyguider.

I'm waiting reply from Ozscopes.com.au & telescopes-astronomy.com.au

Anymore I should know of?

Ta.

[Joshua Bunn]

HI Russ,
Not directly answering your question, but i found it cheaper to import myself, maybe i used bhphotovideo... if i remember correctly, or straight from ioptron, anyway.

Josh

[Russman]

Thanks Josh, bhphoto seems to be a good price for delivery, I'm always a bit nervous about spending that much online for international purchases..

[mbaddah]

I wouldn't buy any ioptron product without local warranty. While they have excellent products, I can't say the same thing about their quality control.

[Peter Ward]

I've taken my Losmandy star-lapse (http://www.losmandy.com/starlapse.html) pretty much to the extreme corners of the planet (Iceland, Ayers Rock, Tennant Creek, Port Douglas)

It's by far the most rigid system on the market, not having to lug counterweights works for me plus Astronomy magazine gave it product of the year.

[Russman]

Thanks for the tip! :thumbsup: My mate recently returned an ioptron product to the store he purchased from, gears were jammed, store said it was the fourth one in the batch with same issue, the store happily swapped it for a working one though! I wont be buying ioptron online, if I do get one it will be from a store for this very reason, I don't want to have the issue of returning it overseas.. can be a costly exercise!



Thanks Peter :thumbsup:, looks tuff! I'll keep that in mind, I won't be buying for a while, I like to research and ponder on these sort of purchases!

[robisintas]

Hello, all, I'm new to the forum and astronomy in general. I recently purchased a pretty cheap Skywatcher 8" Dob (collapsible) sans mount (made my own). Anyway, I too would like something to hook my Nikon D7100 up to. I'd like to use my 105 f2.8 and it would be nice if I might be able to put my Tamron 150-600 onto something. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the options. The Vixen GP2 seems to have been around for a while but the new Skywatcher Star-Adventurer looks like a pretty good deal. Anyone had any experience with the latter yet? I was thinking the alternative might be to get an HEQ5 with or without GOTO. Without seems to be about the same price as the Vixen but the HEQ5 seems to have the advantage of being able to place a decent size OTA latter on. (I don't think it is possible for me to put the Dob on it). Thoughts ???

[Poita]

You can borrow my Astrotrac if you like, I think I have tried all of the portable trackers, the tracking on the Astrotrac is far superior to everthing else, including a HEQ5.
I'm also using it for Solar work with my Lunt 60 and it handles that just fine too.

[Octane]

It also depends on your budget.

While the Astrotrac is at the high end, there's cheaper alternatives such as the Vixen Polarie. :)

H

[robisintas]

That is a very generous offer Poita! You must think highly of it.

Budget? Another language I'm sure :) I guess the thing is, if I end up spending (which one inevitably seems to do) I would hope that I spend wisely and feel that I have acquired the thing that will best do the job (and the Astrotrac would certainly be at the top end of affordability for me). I know that it is too easy to go for cheap options that really don't do the job and subsequently spending again on something better.

[pluto]

Just noticed Opt has the iOptron SkyTracker on sale for $299US or $399US with a tripod and ball head.

Pretty good deal though obviously unsuitable if you really want to do long (800mm!) work on it.

EDIT: just read your comment about not buying iOptron online, feel free to disregard! Though if it wasn't specifically the SkyTracker I personally wouldn't be too worried. I never had any problems with mine.

[Bourza]

Just bought the vixen polarie after exhaustive googling, was initially going to get an ioptron but changed my view. Will post results soon!