Astro shooters which tracker?

[SquarePeg]

Which tracker would you recommend? Doesn’t need to support a ton of weight as I’m typically using a Fuji xt2 and either a small 14mm 2.8 or a Samyang 12mm although I have occasionally used the Fuji 16-80 f/4.

Also, if you don’t live in a dark sky area, are you using a light filter and which one?

 

[photoflyer]

I'm still new to this and so happy to be corrected by anyone with more experience.

I have the CLS clip in filter from HighpointScientific.com. I may have gotten the wrong filter and have not used it with great success. I think filters are best for deep sky objects as opposed to lanscaps with night sky backgrounds but I could be wrong.

I got the Sky Adventurer Sky-Watcher Pro Pack. I got it because the reviews on YouTube appeared to be about the same relative to the larger iOptron but B&H had this one in stock.

Even though your camera and lens may not be that heavy you may want to use a ball head: it all adds up.

A sturdy tripod is a must. I have an old Manfrotto and it is like a tank.

Be patient learning to both align it and then frame your target. I wish I had used a ballhead during the outing to the Skyline Drive. It is hard to describe why but lets just say that I had to rotate the images about 45 degrees to get a level horizon and lost a lot of in the process. With the ballhead I would not have hade that issue.

Still learning.

Finally, the instructions that came with mine are worthless but there are excellent videos onlime that explain how to align it.

Finally, finally, it dawned on me that these trackers are really the hour hand of a 24 hour clock on which you can mount a camera. Thinking about it that way helps understand what a tracker really does.

 

[Mike Drone]

So it moves 30 degrees an hour? It really is a clock with a telescope on it instead of an hour hand....

On a 24 hr clock it would move 15 degrees, which I have heard that stars move, but have also heard arguments. In any case a tracker is a nice piece of equipment. =]

 

[photoflyer]

So it moves 30 degrees an hour? It really is a clock with a telescope on it instead of an hour hand....

On a 24 hour clock the hour hand ( as opposed to minutes hand or seconds hand) makes one revolution every 24 hours as does the tracker.

 

[TreeofLifeStairs]

I believe the tracker’s speed of movement is dependent on where you are located on the planet. Places closer to the equator should be moving faster than closer to the poles.

 

[photoflyer]

I believe the tracker’s speed of movement is dependent on where you are located on the planet. Places closer to the equator should be moving faster than closer to the poles.

Maybe that is true on Altitude / Azimuth mount on my Celestron: I have to program it with date/time/lat/lon before I align it to three stars. The night I shot Neowise I had it out as well. I "told" it to go to Vega and like magic it slewed right to it.

But in this case I am speaking of a polar aligned tracker. They are super simple and the motor is fixed speed for star tracking. Once you sight the North Star just turn it on and it spins at that fixed rate. But, it is up to you to find the object of interest through your cameras. The tracker is not programmed, just mechanically aligned to Polaris and the manually slew your camera. Easy for landscapes but tricky for deep sky objects.

We're I on the North Pole I would point it straight up at Polaris and it would still complete one revolution every 24 hours as up there the stars appear to rotate around Polaris once per day. They do that down here as well but for me at an Altitude of 39° North.

Another benefit of the polar aligned tracker is the whole thing will fit in a rollaboard bag for travel, tripod not included. That is a big reason why I got it.