Review of Astronomy Tents

[glend (Glen)]

I ran across this run down of the currently available astronomy tents. Hopefully some will ship to Australia.


https://www.space.com/best-stargazing-tents

[Wilsil (Wilco)]

A few of my astrophotography group have the octans, which are not mentioned in that article.
It can take a heavy beating with wind, lots of space and they are specifically for astro.

[AnakChan (Sean)]

For stargazing with the naked eye, those probably would suffice. The other would be the Astronomy365 Portable Observatory Tent (now defunct but there are many other OEM variants around). The operative word here being star “gazing” naturally.

For Astrophotography, something more robust for wind shelter is probably more relevant like the AAP’s Octans Portable Observatory tent. That’s substantially more durable and wind resistant.

One thing though with the open tents (for observing or for astrophotography), the open ones can get cold. Back in Sept when I joined my friends in the wheatbelt with my Octans, even with a sleeping bag in a swag, I was miserably cold the whole night waking up to frost forming on my swag, walls of my Octans tent, and on my car.

[Hoges (John)]

What about the Oztent RX5? https://www.oztent.com.au/products/rx-5 They released this shortly after I purchased an RV4. While not specifically designed for astro, It would be pretty darn handy to zip open the big window in the top. Wind wise, I had the RV4 at Hattah Lakes during a spring front that came through - lots of windblown sand and dust and it was noisy but the RV4 stood up to it no problems. The camp next door had the ubiquitous family dome....completely flattened with bits of poles poking out, so the Oztents are certainly strong. And don't believe the '30 second' rubbish. Sure, if you just want to pitch it without pegging anything out, but if you want everything pegged out and awnings up, try 30 minutes. It packs up long - 2.1m and it's heavy but despite my grumbles, I haven't found a more versatile tent yet.