Best portable DSLR mount

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by Adelastro1

I was looking at this too a while ago but after 2 hours you have to stop it and wind the worm gear back and start it again! No good for long timelapses of several hours! It's fine for single shots though. But it can carry up to 15kg supposedly and is accurate to 5 arcseconds over 5 mins.

The other mount that is interesting is the Skywatcher multi function mount. This also comes with a tripod, has a Synscan controller with a polar align routine. But will an alt az mount allow 5 minute round stars at 50mm???

It also works with the Dynamic Perception dolly system and controller.

But I don't know how well it would work as a tracker for longer exposures with a DSLR.

I suspect all of these mounts are only as good as their polar alignment so the one that makes that the easiest is probably the best one.

I agree the 2 hour limit is a major flunk for the Astrotrac. What a major design flaw! It sounds great apart from that.

Greg.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Check this

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Check this

I've seen that before. Very unusual to be asking for funding for something not available for sale and take it on trust.

Its probably above board but its unusual.

Greg.

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Check this

Seems like these devices are flavour of the month on Kickstarter. Here are a couple more:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...motion-control

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...evice?ref=live

I'm a backer of the Genie project.

Cheers,
Rick.

[MrB (Simon)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

I agree the 2 hour limit is a major flunk for the Astrotrac. What a major design flaw! It sounds great apart from that.

Don't know that I would call it a flaw. It's just different.
Is having to deal with a meridian flip on a GEM a major design flaw?

[Poita (Peter)]

I wouldn't call a 2 hour limit a flunk, it isn't designed for time-lapse, it is for getting long subs, and 2hours is not an issue there. It has better tracking accuracy than the polarie and a higher weight capacity, that outweighs the rewind issue for the photography I do.

I would look for a different system for time-lapse, (although two hours still is quite usable for a single time-lapse shot).

The Radian on kickstarter looks promising, a pair gives you pan and tilt, the video here is fairly detailed, it looks like they should be able to knock them out for that money.
http://timelapse.org/2012/07/radian-motion-timelapse/

Though you can pick up celestron nexstar refractors for under $300, remove the OTA and pop your camera on there for a computer controlled cheap Alt/Az mount for a camera.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

I've seen that before. Very unusual to be asking for funding for something not available for sale and take it on trust.

Its probably above board but its unusual.

Greg.

Greg, the kick starter site is for budding entrepreneurs to get public funding for projects. The investor takes a risk and gets in early hopefully cheaper than a commercial product. It's pretty cool, projects don't start till a min amount is raised, and sometimes funding is many times expected, as with the above examples. I invested once. It can take a long time, a year in my case for the project to finish.

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by MrB

Don't know that I would call it a flaw. It's just different.
Is having to deal with a meridian flip on a GEM a major design flaw?

It depends on your use. True you do have to do a meridian flip on a GEM but if the object is in the right position you have probably 4 hours of useable tracking for imaging. But 2 hours is a little short for time lapse.

I read an article about time lapse and they suggest going for 300 images. At 30 second exposures and say 10 second gap between images that is 2 hours I suppose. I see Phil Hart and Alex often do much longer.

Originally Posted by Poita

I wouldn't call a 2 hour limit a flunk, it isn't designed for time-lapse, it is for getting long subs, and 2hours is not an issue there. It has better tracking accuracy than the polarie and a higher weight capacity, that outweighs the rewind issue for the photography I do.

I would look for a different system for time-lapse, (although two hours still is quite usable for a single time-lapse shot).

The Radian on kickstarter looks promising, a pair gives you pan and tilt, the video here is fairly detailed, it looks like they should be able to knock them out for that money.
http://timelapse.org/2012/07/radian-motion-timelapse/

Though you can pick up celestron nexstar refractors for under $300, remove the OTA and pop your camera on there for a computer controlled cheap Alt/Az mount for a camera.

A flunk may be a bit harsh but my point was it was not well suited for time lapse. I don't know why it has a 2 hour limit - why is that? It seems odd as no other mount has a 2 hour time limit.

I wondered about the Alt Az mounts but I am sceptical that they will track accurately enough. My LX90 would give 30 second shots at 50mm before trailing started. That is pretty pathetic when you think about it. You can get 10 second no tracking round star shots at 50mm so its not doing much.

I am coming to the conclusion the Losmandy system is the best on the market. No time limit, it can handle a decent payload, its upgradeable to autoguiding if you wish and its still very portable and relatively affordable
plus it does both long exposure DSLR imaging and time lapse panning.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Greg, the kick starter site is for budding entrepreneurs to get public funding for projects. The investor takes a risk and gets in early hopefully cheaper than a commercial product. It's pretty cool, projects don't start till a min amount is raised, and sometimes funding is many times expected, as with the above examples. I invested once. It can take a long time, a year in my case for the project to finish.

Thanks for the explanation. Its a good idea to enable some brightspark to get their ideas off the ground.

I am really wanting to do something now though so I'll look for something ready now.

Have you looked at Dynamic Perception Dolly, MX 2 controller and Skywatcher Multi Function mount? They work together and you get dolly panning, the mount panning and tilt so it could be a very good setup.

Greg.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

I've only used gear I made, but Phil Hart has a Dyn perception dolly, ask him.

[Poita (Peter)]

For me a two hour time-lapse is more than enough before I would want to cut to another angle anyway, for others it wouldn't be. I find a 12.5 second shot (300 frames at 24fps) without a cut would be about as long as I would sustain interest.

The rewind time is about 80 seconds which is not too onerous. The reason for it is just because it is a scissor mount, it is inherent in the design. The autoguiding works well too and the tracking is brilliant.

The losmady is a great system, but is bigger and heavier and the base system has worse tracking, but probably close enough to be okay, people get good results with it.

They each have their market space and both are good products.

I wouldn't want to lug any more weight than the AT really, but I'm a wuss.

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by Poita

For me a two hour time-lapse is more than enough before I would want to cut to another angle anyway, for others it wouldn't be. I find a 12.5 second shot (300 frames at 24fps) without a cut would be about as long as I would sustain interest.

The rewind time is about 80 seconds which is not too onerous. The reason for it is just because it is a scissor mount, it is inherent in the design. The autoguiding works well too and the tracking is brilliant.

The losmady is a great system, but is bigger and heavier and the base system has worse tracking, but probably close enough to be okay, people get good results with it.

They each have their market space and both are good products.

I wouldn't want to lug any more weight than the AT really, but I'm a wuss.

Yes you have to evaluate in terms of what you would use it for and what those requirements are.

For me I would usually want longer than 2 hours for time lapse. I am basing that on Phil Hart and Alex Cherney's time lapses. Alex in particular seems to do considerably more than 2 hours. I suppose it depends if you have a dynamic environment that you are imaging to create interest.

The Milky Way simply rising or setting against a backdrop of trees may not be interesting enough for longer than 12.5 seconds. But if you have panning it makes it more interesting and if there is something moving in the shot like ships, traffic, a tree, clouds etc it becomes more able to sustain interest.

Greg.

[alexch (Alex)]

Originally Posted by Adelastro1

Alex Cherney was using a Polarie the night of the Malin Awards at the Dish and he had a Nikon D3s + 14-24 sitting on it, albeit only using it for Az panning that night so therefore not straining it at all. I think it might struggle with that weight though doing polar tracking because of the angles involved. So it depends what you want to use it for. After seeing it in action I think I'll get a Polarie for panning then maybe another EQ mount system to take the heavy equipment for polar tracking. The Polarie is so small it will be great for travelling. I'll get one for my possible round the world trip next year!

If Alex doesn't reply to this send him a message and ask him for his thoughts. I'd be interested to know more from him about it too!
What do other award winning animators use, such as Phil Hart and Colin Legg?

I had Nikkor 70-200mm with Sony NEX-5 and a 300gm ballhead (about 2kg of total weight) on the Polarie tracking beautifully for 1 minute shots.
I would say that 1.6kg load specifications on Vixen website are quite conservative and it is capable of 2+ kg of load depending how you mount it.

It is a very well engineered unit.

Cheers,
Alex

[NCC-2893 (John)]

I just picked up the latest sky and telescope and see theres a polarie review in there.