For you budding astrophotographers

KmH · Oct 21, 2011

To minimize star trails, you need to counteract the Earths west to east rotation.

Gitzo has announced the new Athena electronic, motor driven, 3-way tripod head - Gitzo SER.5 3 WAY ELECTRONIC HEAD - threeway

Overread · Oct 21, 2011

*moving to equipment subsection*

Also that looks darn nice!

(and darn expensive too

)

KmH · Oct 21, 2011

Oops!

I thought it was in the equipment subsection. Sorry!

Patrice · Oct 21, 2011

$10,000 for a load capacity of 13 1/4 lbs !!!

You want to do astrophotography then go take a look at any astronomy seller's website to see just how much more mount you could get for that kind of money. In fact, the gadget shown is very similar in layout to almost any of the fork type motorized altitude-azimuth mounts available at astronomy stores. These types of mounts are not the best suited for astrophotography in that you still have to deal with field rotation when used for longer exposures or for many stakes over a longer period of time.

$500 to $1500 will get you a motorized german equatorial more than adequate to support a camera and any lens. The top end of the price range will add computerization (Go-To), computer linkage and auto-guiding capabilities.