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What is a good portable tracker mount?

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$1,800+ for the basic version and $3,300+ for the goto version (neither including the Dec wedge, $350, or a tripod), that had better be one #%@!ing amazing mount. A person buying this mount has $$$$ to burn, there's no way I could justify that cost (~10x the cost of the Sky Watcher Star Adventurer full package or the iOptron Skyguider Pro).
 
EricTheAstroJunkie said:
$1,800+ for the basic version and $3,300+ for the goto version (neither including the Dec wedge, $350, or a tripod), that had better be one #%@!ing amazing mount. A person buying this mount has $$$$ to burn, there's no way I could justify that cost (~10x the cost of the Sky Watcher Star Adventurer full package or the iOptron Skyguider Pro).
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Judging by your gearlist, you may be just that person! 😀
 
In all honesty, I don’t think you should compare it to those mounts.

This mount will be in a different league (it still has to prove that of course) and is much more than a simple tracker.

But if that is what you are looking for, than you should not even consider this unless you want just the basic single unit.
 
EricTheAstroJunkie said:
$1,800+ for the basic version and $3,300+ for the goto version (neither including the Dec wedge, $350, or a tripod), that had better be one #%@!ing amazing mount. A person buying this mount has $$$$ to burn, there's no way I could justify that cost (~10x the cost of the Sky Watcher Star Adventurer full package or the iOptron Skyguider Pro).
Click to expand...
Sometimes it is better to buy more expensive stuff in the first case, instead of replacing things that don't quite work, and just causes you a lot of trouble.
 
Magnar W said:
EricTheAstroJunkie said:
See my followup post here about details with my guiding setup using the Star Adventurer, I used an Orion 50mm guidescope and a ToupTek guidecam connected to a small windows tablet running PHD2 and BackyardNikon, even did 1-axis dithering:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/62368789
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This is way too complex and heavy to bring handheld out into the dark when moving around.
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Yes there is a point where you may as well get a larger GEM with all the bells and whistles and both axes tracking - like Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro.

Greg.
 
EricTheAstroJunkie said:
? I did it many many times, easily the most cumbersome part of the whole thing was the 150-600mm lens, definitely not the guiding setup which was extremely light and easy to setup and use. You can even now buy this smaller guidescope and cam setup: https://optcorp.com/products/qhy-mini-guide-scope-with-mount

You're not going to get much more portable of a tracking mount and guiding setup for 300mm+ focal lengths that this, believe me I spent a longggg time looking at portable setups to take backpacking and on long road trips. The reviews of the autoguiding setups I read were not great and you still need a guidescope for it so you don't save anything in terms of weight or complexity.
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This little autoguider lens units are probably fine up to a relatively short focal length and then despite the marketing they are not so great.

Greg.
 
rnclark said:
Magnar W said:
EricTheAstroJunkie said:
See my followup post here about details with my guiding setup using the Star Adventurer, I used an Orion 50mm guidescope and a ToupTek guidecam connected to a small windows tablet running PHD2 and BackyardNikon, even did 1-axis dithering:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/62368789
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This is way too complex and heavy to bring handheld out into the dark when moving around.
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I agree, but maybe people need to define what portability and complexity means for them.

There are many mounts talked about here. But any mount with a worm gears that are only a few inches in diameter will have significant tracking errors. Example: with a 6-inch (150 mm) diameter gear, which is much larger than any of the "portable" mounts discussed here, 1 arc-second at the radius of 3 inches (75 mm) is 0.000015 inches (0.00036 mm, 0.36 micron!!!!). No mechanical gear can be that accurate, so autoguiding is a necessity adding to weight, bulk and complexity of a portable system.

300 mm focal length with a camera with 4-micron pixel is 2.75 arc-seconds per pixel. Tracking needs to be accurate to about peak to peak of 2 arc-seconds for round stars. Increase precision by 2x for 600 mm.

The Astrotrac uses a tangent arm and a lead screw and nut with many threads in contact at a radius of 14 inches. This enables higher tracking accuracy (5-arc-seconds if I remember correctly), but better on a short exposure of a minute or two.

The Fornax Lightrack II is also a long tangent arm using a friction drive which reduces periodic error with a claimed accuracy of +/- 1 arc-second peak to peak, better in short ~1 minute exposures. Thus 300, 400, 600mm images are possible with no guiding.

Seagull Nebula 300 mm Fornax lightrack, no guiding.

Eta Carinae Nebula 300 mm, Astrotrac, no guiding, 2/3 full resolution. full frame image

Omega Nebula, M17 420 mm (300 + 1.4x TC), Astrotrac, no guiding, full resolution

Whirlpool Galaxy, M51 420 mm (300 + 1.4x TC), Astrotrac, no guiding, 1.33x full resolution.

Here is my setup, which I can lift with one hand:

Everything needed for deep sky astrophotography can be lifted with one hand
Everything needed for deep sky astrophotography can be lifted with one hand

The Fornax lightrack II with the same lens and tripod is similar in weight. I use both. I have 2 astrotracs and 1 lightrack and a Losmandy G11 and 2 other heavy equatorial mounts. I rarely use the big equatorial mounts.

More details: Very Portable Astrophotography

Roger
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The issue would be at these accuracy levels - flexure. Because everything tends to be a lightish build the weak points will be those that could flex under load. Otherwise at a true 1 arc sec accuracy you could do nearly 1 hour accurate images with some autoguiding.

Greg.
 
Pogo65 said:
A little late in this thread, but my two cents:

I have a Lighttrack II and while I agree with most people here that it is a fantastic tracker, it does have some serious limitations that made me order a new Astrotrac360 ( the full package)

First of all , tracking on the light track is fantastic. 300, 3min is no problem at all, if you get it properly polar aligned, this requires a properly aligned polar scope or Polemaster.

However a 300mm lens and heavy camera is cumbersome and sometimes objects are difficult to frame depending on where in the sky you are pointing. A declination unit helps a bit (I have one from AstroTrac), also with the weight and balance, but overall, I found it to be a bit of a pain. Once you are tracking you do not have much time as it runs out of range quite quickly and than you have to go through all the motions again to get your object framed properly again.

I have also used it with a 150-600 mm lens and while tracking wise it can handle it, I think weight wise it is not really up to it and again pointing is difficult and sometimes frustrating.

Now the new AstroTrac is expensive, especially the whole package, but if it will live up to its claims we are talking a compact full go to (via phone app or similar) equatorial mount, that can also be used modular (simple tracker as well) and for longer focal lengths will be a much more capable mount.

I have been in this hobby for a very long time already, and also use an Astrophysics Mach 1 mount for larger telescopes. Since I always have to travel to dark sites, I have always wished for a smallish and portable but capable GEM and with the new AstroTrac, I thing I many have fond it.

We have been waiting for it for a while now, but it should be ready soon.

My Fornax will be for sale soon.

Peter
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Interesting post. Other reviews I have read about trackers and 300mm + focal length lenses made comments about the difficulty of finding the objects. I guess that would be exacerbated by smaller sensors.

Go to is handy and at long focal lengths it can be very hard to find objects you want to image.

Greg.
 
Magnar W said:
EricTheAstroJunkie said:
$1,800+ for the basic version and $3,300+ for the goto version (neither including the Dec wedge, $350, or a tripod), that had better be one #%@!ing amazing mount. A person buying this mount has $$$$ to burn, there's no way I could justify that cost (~10x the cost of the Sky Watcher Star Adventurer full package or the iOptron Skyguider Pro).
Click to expand...
Sometimes it is better to buy more expensive stuff in the first case, instead of replacing things that don't quite work, and just causes you a lot of trouble.
Click to expand...
Absolutely. My definite policy when it comes to astro gear. Sell and rebuy what you should've in the first place ends up costing more than the "too expensive"m better gear.

Greg.
 
Astrophotographer 10 said:
Magnar W said:
EricTheAstroJunkie said:
$1,800+ for the basic version and $3,300+ for the goto version (neither including the Dec wedge, $350, or a tripod), that had better be one #%@!ing amazing mount. A person buying this mount has $$$$ to burn, there's no way I could justify that cost (~10x the cost of the Sky Watcher Star Adventurer full package or the iOptron Skyguider Pro).
Click to expand...
Sometimes it is better to buy more expensive stuff in the first case, instead of replacing things that don't quite work, and just causes you a lot of trouble.
Click to expand...
Absolutely. My definite policy when it comes to astro gear. Sell and rebuy what you should've in the first place ends up costing more than the "too expensive"m better gear.

Greg.
Click to expand...
Completely agree here!
 
Magnar W said:
EricTheAstroJunkie said:
$1,800+ for the basic version and $3,300+ for the goto version (neither including the Dec wedge, $350, or a tripod), that had better be one #%@!ing amazing mount. A person buying this mount has $$$$ to burn, there's no way I could justify that cost (~10x the cost of the Sky Watcher Star Adventurer full package or the iOptron Skyguider Pro).
Click to expand...
Sometimes it is better to buy more expensive stuff in the first case, instead of replacing things that don't quite work, and just causes you a lot of trouble.
Click to expand...
I'm not really sure what this mount would provide in terms of reliability (it's not even been tested in the real world yet) or improvements over what I currently have and have used EXTENSIVELY for years now. Believe me when I say I have absolutely gotten every bloody penny out of my portable tracking mounts, first the original iOptron Skytracker, then the larger Sky Watcher Star Adventurer, and now the Star Adventurer Mini. I have put a HHHUUUGGEEEE number of hours on the first two and have been using the Mini for the last 6 months. I doubt you'll find many people across the world who have used and abused their portable mounts as much as I have, taken them on long backpacking trips, using them in temps well below zero, vastly exceeding their payload capacities with large lenses/heavy cameras/guiding setups, using them in very harsh conditions/shooting locations. Never had a single problem with either the iOptron or the Sky Watcher. Hell, I accidentally turned the Star Adventurer on 12x sidereal with the counterweight attached when I stored it one night and woke up to the counterweight banging off my cot frame after several hours, still works perfectly fine.

There are so many other things I'd prefer to spend an extra $1,400 or $2,900 on, be it a better scope, better lens, better camera, or even just using that money on travel expenses to cool places. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful looking mount, I just cannot see any logic in spending the money on it versus the other mounts available, especially if you're just doing widefield imaging with a DSLR and lenses wider than 300mm.
 
Are you really going to use a telescope with a focal length long enough to get to that point on a portable tracking mount? 99.999% of astrophotographers using a portable mount will use a telescope or a lens up to maybe 500mm on these lightweight mounts and the mini-guidescope is perfectly fine for that, with a focal length of 130mm you could use it with imaging scopes/lenses up to 1,300mm (with a 10/1 imaging/guiding scope ratio).
 
EricTheAstroJunkie said:
Are you really going to use a telescope with a focal length long enough to get to that point on a portable tracking mount? 99.999% of astrophotographers using a portable mount will use a telescope or a lens up to maybe 500mm on these lightweight mounts and the mini-guidescope is perfectly fine for that, with a focal length of 130mm you could use it with imaging scopes/lenses up to 1,300mm (with a 10/1 imaging/guiding scope ratio).
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I agree with you if you only use a short focal length lens, then all of the trackers will indeed be just fine. Maybe one a little better than the other.

You are talking 500mm though and that is where I disagree. I know people have used it with trackers including myself, but even though a tracker like the Lighttrack are up to the task as far as tracking accuracy goes, I do not think they were meant to use those kind of focal lengths, apart from the fact that it is a pain to balance and accurately frame a target in a way that is repeatable.

So than, if you still want portable, but more capable mount to use those kind of lenses or small telescopes, I think that is what the AstroTrac is meant to do and will also be very capable with all the other setups as well. You can even use the two units as two separate trackers if you wish to do so.

Now if you find it worth the money is of course up to the individual. For me I think it might be great, after working with several trackers and bigger telescope mounts.

Cheers,

Peter
 
I honestly don't use my lightweight trackers for anything over 135mm, the reason being simply it's just a huge PITA framing the target in the field of view. I had fun using my Tamzooka 150-600mm on the iOptron Skytracker and Sky Watcher Star Adventurer, even produced some really good images given the quality of the setup, but moving to a dedicated goto mount for those longer focal lengths made my astro life much much easier. Weight balancing was a lot easier when I moved to even just an EQ5 mount, as well. I just think there are a number of reasons to avoid using longer focal lengths (like 200mm+) on these smaller mounts and spending $2-3k on one could be used more wisely in other areas relevant to a person's interest in this hobby.

That's not to say if I had a free $2k lying around I wouldn't spend it on the mount, I've certainly made a number of unreasonable purchases for this hobby over the years, but for me that money doesn't come easy.
 
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EricTheAstroJunkie said:
Are you really going to use a telescope with a focal length long enough to get to that point on a portable tracking mount? 99.999% of astrophotographers using a portable mount will use a telescope or a lens up to maybe 500mm on these lightweight mounts and the mini-guidescope is perfectly fine for that, with a focal length of 130mm you could use it with imaging scopes/lenses up to 1,300mm (with a 10/1 imaging/guiding scope ratio).
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No maximum focal length I would be using would be 420mm (300mm lens with a 1.4X teleconverter). Most of the time it would be 300mm or less.

I had the SBIG lens autoguider kit. with their STi guider. It could not cope with 1200mm focal length.

So if you are buying this to do guide 1300mm I would check with owners that it in fact will do that.

From what I have researched so far, 500mm is outside the scope of any of these portable trackers unless you are talking about short 30 second exposures and even then it may be problematic.

They have a design goal of being a Milky Way widefield lens imaging platform and 200mm is probably a workable reliable focal length with the better ones up to 300 perhaps short exposures at 420mm.

I am looking to go Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro for 250 and 300mm and possibly 420mm and later a small 105mm F6 high end refractor.

250mm and less on the tracker.

The best ones so far seem to be the Fornax LighTrack ii, the Skywatycher Adventurer,

the Unitec Swat 310 or 350, the Toast Pro TP-2. The Polarie can be kitted up to upgrade it with a nice wedge from either Vixen (I read a few places it has some play) or from Unitec or Toast, plus a nice main plate that has a hole in it for the polar scope.

Unitec Swat is the unit I keep coming back to. 15kg payload for a small compact tracker with +/- 7 arc seconds or better tracking (polarie is about 40 or more).

No time limit. Lots of beautifully made accessories. Its expensive though. Swat can be autoguided though for the lightweight nightscape setup or shorter focal lengths up to around 200mm it wouldn't need autoguiding. Plus they can make an adapter to fit my existing Vixen Polar Scope.

Perhaps I should just upgrade my Polarie and get a HEQ5 Pro for the longer focal lengths and for visual use.

A fully kitted up Swat 350 costs ar,ound US$1500 and the Toast TP-2 is cheaper at around US$1000. Lightrack ii comparable kit is 819 Euros better tracking but has the time limit.

Greg.
 
What we are willing to pay for a product is a matter of personal preference.

Got the Vixen counterbalance set - paid a bit, but have a very well working system without the need to tweak and mess around with the setup. Can even clamp the Sigma 1.4/105 directly to the mount.

This setup cost me less the half the price I paid for one of my cameras - and will outlast my cameras many times over. So a bit spent initially, but not bad at all when looking at user satisfaction and cost per year. This is a good portable tracker mount - for me.

A chinese mount is out of the question here - simply do not want that.

And a larger mount can not at all replace my compact kit - regardless of value for money. Do not get a pickup truck if I need a bicycle...

So - we are different. Some go for a Leica and a Rolex, others not.

How well or not money is spent is up to each to judge - others may well tell me how to spend my own money, but I will not even care to listen. Have my agenda, you see...
 
I think you misunderstood what I was talking about, I wouldn't ever put a lens or scope greater than 600mm on a portable mount and I wouldn't recommend going over 450mm in most cases. What I was talking about was the mini guidescope, which is more than sufficient for accurate guiding of lenses/scopes of that focal length.
 
EricTheAstroJunkie said:
I think you misunderstood what I was talking about, I wouldn't ever put a lens or scope greater than 600mm on a portable mount and I wouldn't recommend going over 450mm in most cases. What I was talking about was the mini guidescope, which is more than sufficient for accurate guiding of lenses/scopes of that focal length.
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Oh I see Eric.

Those mini guiders would indeed be perfect for these lens setups.

I have pretty much concluded my research on the latest available mounts/trackers.

Firstly, wow there are a lot of them. It used to be Takahashi Teegul or Kenko Skymemo and Polarie and thats about it.

Now there are:

1 Skywatcher Star Adventurer which is arguably best bang for your buck. Tends to get good reviews. 200mm may be the limit.

2. IOptron has a few different models. Opinions vary about their quality.

3. Vixen Polarie - I have one of these and its a good little performer. 200mm lens is probably the limit and even then not much more than 30 seconds. With the counterbalance upgrade perhaps a bit more. I don't know.

4. Astrotrac - one of the best performers. More expensive though.

5. LighTrack ii - the new king of this type of mount. Perhaps the limit here is flexure.

1-2 minutes 300mm sounds like close to its limits. You can autoguide in 1 axis though.

6. Unitec Swat 310 and 350 - sub +/- 7 arc second tracking, small and compact, lots of high end beautifully made accessories. Expensive. Japanese.

Believe it or not the SWAT 350 has a 15kg load limit. Wow. Its the size of an Ipad.

7. Toast Technologies - TP-2 - Similar to the SWAT 200 which is no longer made. Unitec accessories can fit them. Cheaper than SWAT 310. 5kg load limit, sub +/- 7 arc second tracking. Well made. They have a Toast Delicious prototype and if that made it to market it would be awesome. Polar alignment via GPS - so easy.

8.Jilva -170 - similar to Swat but larger and heavier but still portable. 4 arc sec tracking.Japanese.

9. Kenko Skymemo - no longer made and the new Skymemo 2 is merely a rebranded Star Adventurer.

10. Vixen has a small dual axis GEM which should be considered in this class. More expensive than a lot of these though and a bit less portable.

11. Takahashi EM11 Temma 2 - getting a bit larger now and less portable but its one of their smallest and lightest mounts and Tak quality speaks for itself. Expensive.

For me wanting to either get a lightweight GEM to run one of these new William Optics 250mm F4.9 petsval lenses and be able to do 5 minute exposures I would have to get something high performing. LighTrack ii can also be autoguided.

I also have a 300mm F4 double ED lens I want to image with on the same setup at my dark site.

So I decided to go for overmounting a bit and go for a HEQ5 Pro mount which after research seem to be good and they are inexpensive - about the same as Lightrack ii (obviously not as portable).

The remaining question is whether to upgrade my Vixen Polarie (counterweights, wedge, different body mounting unit) or get a LighTrack ii for nightscape work and shorter focal lengths.

The Polarie has been good. If I could upgrade it cheaply enough it would be a simple decision but the upgrade cost is about AUD$600 which is what I paid for it plus the polar scope.

There are also some other Japanese manufacturers who offer some upgrade parts as well for the Polarie.

Greg.
 
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Astrophotographer 10 said:
EricTheAstroJunkie said:
I think you misunderstood what I was talking about, I wouldn't ever put a lens or scope greater than 600mm on a portable mount and I wouldn't recommend going over 450mm in most cases. What I was talking about was the mini guidescope, which is more than sufficient for accurate guiding of lenses/scopes of that focal length.
Click to expand...
Oh I see Eric.

Those mini guiders would indeed be perfect for these lens setups.

I have pretty much concluded my research on the latest available mounts/trackers.

Firstly, wow there are a lot of them. It used to be Takahashi Teegul or Kenko Skymemo and Polarie and thats about it.

Now there are:

1 Skywatcher Star Adventurer which is arguably best bang for your buck. Tends to get good reviews. 200mm may be the limit.

2. IOptron has a few different models. Opinions vary about their quality.

3. Vixen Polarie - I have one of these and its a good little performer. 200mm lens is probably the limit and even then not much more than 30 seconds. With the counterbalance upgrade perhaps a bit more. I don't know.

4. Astrotrac - one of the best performers. More expensive though.

5. LighTrack ii - the new king of this type of mount. Perhaps the limit here is flexure.

1-2 minutes 300mm sounds like close to its limits. You can autoguide in 1 axis though.

6. Unitec Swat 310 and 350 - sub +/- 7 arc second tracking, small and compact, lots of high end beautifully made accessories. Expensive. Japanese.

Believe it or not the SWAT 350 has a 15kg load limit. Wow. Its the size of an Ipad.

7. Toast Technologies - TP-2 - Similar to the SWAT 200 which is no longer made. Unitec accessories can fit them. Cheaper than SWAT 310. 5kg load limit, sub +/- 7 arc second tracking. Well made. They have a Toast Delicious prototype and if that made it to market it would be awesome. Polar alignment via GPS - so easy.

8.Jilva -170 - similar to Swat but larger and heavier but still portable. 4 arc sec tracking.Japanese.

9. Kenko Skymemo - no longer made and the new Skymemo 2 is merely a rebranded Star Adventurer.

10. Vixen has a small dual axis GEM which should be considered in this class. More expensive than a lot of these though and a bit less portable.

11. Takahashi EM11 Temma 2 - getting a bit larger now and less portable but its one of their smallest and lightest mounts and Tak quality speaks for itself. Expensive.

For me wanting to either get a lightweight GEM to run one of these new William Optics 250mm F4.9 petsval lenses and be able to do 5 minute exposures I would have to get something high performing. LighTrack ii can also be autoguided.

I also have a 300mm F4 double ED lens I want to image with on the same setup at my dark site.

So I decided to go for overmounting a bit and go for a HEQ5 Pro mount which after research seem to be good and they are inexpensive - about the same as Lightrack ii (obviously not as portable).

The remaining question is whether to upgrade my Vixen Polarie (counterweights, wedge, different body mounting unit) or get a LighTrack ii for nightscape work and shorter focal lengths.

The Polarie has been good. If I could upgrade it cheaply enough it would be a simple decision but the upgrade cost is about AUD$600 which is what I paid for it plus the polar scope.

There are also some other Japanese manufacturers who offer some upgrade parts as well for the Polarie.
Click to expand...
DIY is the least expensive upgrade path for the Polarie. Increased weight capacity should be the same as Vixen's kit.

In your list of trackers you actually missed a few at the lower weight capacity, lower focal length end. But those won't meet your needs so maybe you know of them but simply did not list them.

Another option for others considering a tracker, maybe not yourself, is something far from obvious, and that is Astrotracer. It could be considered another type of tracker that requires buying a new camera with it ( :-D ). In terms of weight capacity (the limit is your tripod) and focal length (I have seen good results with 300mm) it slots right into the list. Personally, I have routinely done 200mm at 60 seconds (I don't have a 300mm lens for Pentax), example here . I don't feel I need to buy a tracker. It has functionally replaced my old setup here . I use my GP-DX (comparable to HEQ5) now only for through-the-telescope stuff.
 
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Nice list. It would be nice to add other details for all, like tracking accuracy, total weight.

A couple of comments:
Astrophotographer 10 said:
Those mini guiders would indeed be perfect for these lens setups.

I have pretty much concluded my research on the latest available mounts/trackers.

Firstly, wow there are a lot of them. It used to be Takahashi Teegul or Kenko Skymemo and Polarie and thats about it.

Now there are:

1 Skywatcher Star Adventurer which is arguably best bang for your buck. Tends to get good reviews. 200mm may be the limit.

2. IOptron has a few different models. Opinions vary about their quality.

3. Vixen Polarie - I have one of these and its a good little performer. 200mm lens is probably the limit and even then not much more than 30 seconds. With the counterbalance upgrade perhaps a bit more. I don't know.

4. Astrotrac - one of the best performers. More expensive though.
Click to expand...
Tangent arm design limit tracking to (check number) about 2 hours.

tracking accuracy 5 arc-sec peak-peak (cheack over X time.
Astrophotographer 10 said:
5. LighTrack ii - the new king of this type of mount. Perhaps the limit here is flexure.

1-2 minutes 300mm sounds like close to its limits. You can autoguide in 1 axis though.
Click to expand...
Tangent arm design limit tracking to (check number) a little less than 2 hours.

Tracking accuracy /- 1 arc-second

Not sure where you get the idea of flexure. I haven't seen any. It is more solid than the astrotrac--the arms have about doublt the thickness. With 1-arc sec tracking the time limit is certainly much more than 1-2 minutes. In fact, seems limited only by polar alignment accuracy. My most recent image, Seagull Nebula was made with wind gusts to 30 mph. I could not have made this image with the astrotrac under those conditions, not many other light mounts.
Astrophotographer 10 said:
6. Unitec Swat 310 and 350 - sub +/- 7 arc second tracking, small and compact, lots of high end beautifully made accessories. Expensive. Japanese.

Believe it or not the SWAT 350 has a 15kg load limit. Wow. Its the size of an Ipad.

7. Toast Technologies - TP-2 - Similar to the SWAT 200 which is no longer made. Unitec accessories can fit them. Cheaper than SWAT 310. 5kg load limit, sub +/- 7 arc second tracking. Well made. They have a Toast Delicious prototype and if that made it to market it would be awesome. Polar alignment via GPS - so easy.

8.Jilva -170 - similar to Swat but larger and heavier but still portable. 4 arc sec tracking.Japanese.

9. Kenko Skymemo - no longer made and the new Skymemo 2 is merely a rebranded Star Adventurer.

10. Vixen has a small dual axis GEM which should be considered in this class. More expensive than a lot of these though and a bit less portable.

11. Takahashi EM11 Temma 2 - getting a bit larger now and less portable but its one of their smallest and lightest mounts and Tak quality speaks for itself. Expensive.

For me wanting to either get a lightweight GEM to run one of these new William Optics 250mm F4.9 petsval lenses and be able to do 5 minute exposures I would have to get something high performing. LighTrack ii can also be autoguided.

I also have a 300mm F4 double ED lens I want to image with on the same setup at my dark site.

So I decided to go for overmounting a bit and go for a HEQ5 Pro mount which after research seem to be good and they are inexpensive - about the same as Lightrack ii (obviously not as portable).

The remaining question is whether to upgrade my Vixen Polarie (counterweights, wedge, different body mounting unit) or get a LighTrack ii for nightscape work and shorter focal lengths.

The Polarie has been good. If I could upgrade it cheaply enough it would be a simple decision but the upgrade cost is about AUD$600 which is what I paid for it plus the polar scope.

There are also some other Japanese manufacturers who offer some upgrade parts as well for the Polarie.

Greg.
Click to expand...
 
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