Mount for large camera

[Driftwood]

Hi guys, my name is Owen Rennie. I'm new to the forum and have some questions

I'm a cinematographer and I'm planning on shooting the moon and sun. I'm looking to mount my Red Dragon and Canon 800mm (approx 12-15kg) and track these.

I'm after a high quality mount that can handle the weight and have very smooth motors/ tracking. Price under $5kAUD if possible. I have my own heavy duty tripods but I'm not sure if these mounts can attach to 100mm video tripods?

I live in Sydney and was going to visit a few Astronomy shops this week but would love to get some feedback/advice.

What type of mount? What brand? I'll also need to fix a solar filter to the lens for sun and also a dew filter in some cases. Any other tips?

I don't plan on shooting any other objects in the sky (yet) but would be good to have a mount with the option too

Thanks, I look forward to hearing from you guys

[rustigsmed]

hi Owen,

I would suggest something like http://www.bintel.com.au/Mounts---Tripods/EQ-Mounts/Sky-Watcher-AZ-EQ6-GT-Mount/1522/productview.aspx

It can handle the weight and is belt driven (smooth and less backlash). they can track the night sky or at solar / lunar or other planetary rates.

Not sure what kind of adapters you will need to mount it but it should be achievable.

I hope that helps,

Cheers

Rusty

[The_bluester]

I was going to suggest something similar, though an NEQ6 is cheaper, only loosing the dual mode (ALT-AZ and EQ) capability. Another option would be the Orion version of the AZEQ6, Pretty much an identical mount but painted black and generally a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than the Skywatcher.

It should be fairly straightforward to mount the Red and Lens on a dovetail bar for a nice rigid setup. The only question is tracking accuracy. What sort of time periods would you be looking to track for? For long exposure astrophotography people usually use guidescopes or guiding via the main imaging light path to pick out a guide star to assist tracking accuracy, but the moon moves at a different rate to the stars and obviously when the sun is up, there would be no other stars to guide with.

Imaging with the Red, are you doing stills or video?

[Driftwood]

Thanks for the replies Russell and Paul. I visited the shop at Glebe today and had a good chat with them. They also recommended the Sky Watcher AZ E6.. It looks like a nice solid piece of equipment.

I'm taking my camera rig out there tomorrow to test it out. I have a rail/ bracket that should work perfect for mounting

I'm hoping to be able to frame on the horizon and capture the moon rise and track it for up to 1 hour. The shots I have in mind is as follow

- tracking moon rising with city/buildings in foreground ( Timelapse)
- tracking moon through patchy clouds (Timelapse)
- tracking moon with the hopes to capture objects such as planes in foreground (slow motion)

By the sounds of it it's not as simple as telling the mount to focus on horizon and wait for moon than start tracking.... But it's doable. I'm sure I'll be asking a few questions once I start playing with the rig

I will be shooting anywhere from 1- 200 frames per second for Timelapse and slow motion. Each frame also acting as a still image.. It's an amazing little camera the Dragon!

If you guys have anything else to add it would be great to hear from you

Owen

[The_bluester]

You would need to have the mount well aligned mechanically to begin with (By mechanically I mean well polar aligned, something that takes a bit of practice and understanding but is not really that difficult) but after that it should be possible to do what you are after.

[Driftwood]

Sounds good.. Thanks agin for your advice, really appreciate it

[The_bluester]

Actually, it occurred to me that depending on what you are trying to achieve, The AZEQ mount in ALT-AZ mode is probably what you would be needing.

A mount in EQ mode is going to track the sun and moon and should even without guiding, hole them reasonably centred in the frame, but the horizon and landscape are going to rotate in the field of view.

In ALT-AZ mode the sun and moon should remain centred in the frame but will rotate, however the horizon and landscape will move in a more natural looking way.

[Driftwood]

Ok interesting... Someone else has recommended the G11 lomandy.. Would this mount work better?

[rustigsmed]

G11 is a great mount but over kill IMO the alt az function of the skywatcher (in addition to its equatorial functionality) will make your lunar / solar sequences way easier to get setup, otherwise you will have to polar align at midday (solar noon method) or the night before (and hope for a clear night). That camera sounds like a beast I'll do some more research on it.

[Hans Tucker]

What about the Losmandy StarLapse Camera Motion System

http://www.losmandy.com/starlapse.html

[Driftwood]

This is all quite confusing for me.. I think I best join a club and see some of these scopes in use and possibly test with my rig before purchasing.. Any recommendations of somewhere near Cronulla? I think Bonnet Bay has a club? Happy to travel though

The star lapse camera mount looks interesting. Payload only 13kg though which is pushing limits. I use other small motion controlled heads with small cameras to pan/tilt across the sky and track Milky Way, this would be helpful for that though

[The_bluester]

Depending on what imagery you are looking for, I think the Alt-Az motion is likely to be better for you, witch mounts like the Starlapse will not give you.

The idea of getting out to an astronomy club meeting is a good one, generally people are very happy to talk about their gear and how it works.

[sil]

An Alt-Az mount is what you want, its more like a regular camera tripod head where you want to pan the camera left/right and tilt it up an down. You are not after an astrophotography solution where EQ is needed because you need to cancel rotation from long exposures to get pin point stars instead of streaks.

Russell's suggestion of the AZ EQ6 is spot on and is more then capable of handling large cumbersome loads. you just need to make sure you find a suitable dovetail plate solution to attach to your camera gear that can then attach to the EQ6, there are lots of options available for plate adapters to cater to what you need.

You haven't mentioned what you are after with your sun shots, are you assuming a solar filter will let you see filaments and solar flares or are you happy with the sun being a white flat disc with maybe some sunspots.

You also need to have a suitable battery pack to power the mount/guider you go for so consider how long you expect the setup to run for uninterrupted.

Another option to bring up with any local clubs is maybe someone with a home observatory has a mount setup you could rent time on with your camera to get the tracking shots as it would already be polar aligned and weather protected so it can track the sun/moon below the horizon. Unless you NEED a specific horizon landscape in the shot.

[Driftwood]

Nice info, thanks guys..

Regarding the sun shots I'm after I haven't done much research in this yet, however I do have hopes of capturing more than just a white disc.. Is it possible? I see NASA have some pretty awesome shots.. What would be involved in seeing detail on the sun?

[John0z]

Taking photos or video of the Sun will usually require you to place a solar filter in front of the lens, making sure that it is secure and won't come off, otherwise, the focused beam of light (including infrared) will most likely damage your camera - which looks very expensive. Bintel would also be able to advise and show you solar filters that would suit, so ask them when you go in with your camera and lens.

On a side note, often the Nasa images are in Hydrogen Alpha light which isn't possible without a lot more equipment, mainly replacing the Canon lens with a proper solar telescope like the Lunt's, and Coronado's etc.