Basic tripod and guided Astrophotography tips?

Robin,

Cheers! You have no idea how much your responses has helped me. I'm actually on my trip tomorrow so I didn't have time to look at the AstroTrac but looking on the web, it looks like an interesting device.

So today I went out and bought the Vixen Polarie...the weight limitation is a little disappointing but I think I'm just at the border with the D800E & say the 14-24/2.8 or 24-70/2.8.

I guess I'll have to take a guess with the focusing 'cos at least with the old film cameras i can use a Matte Frasnel type focusing screen but with the digital focusing screens it's more difficult. I asked about LiveView 'cos I was wondering if I can use the digital on-screen zoom during manual focus.

Thx about the NR tip. I normally shoot RAW+JPG. I thought NR was applied to Raw too. Thx for the tip on dedicated software for astrophotography! I was gonna use Aperture and didn't know dedicated software for astrophotography existed (well, not for post processing anyway - i knew they existed for tethering/tracking during photography).