Andre Yew
Senior Member
Here's a couple photos of my star tracker setup. It's based on Hudson Henry's video head idea, and I like it because it's so versatile, light, and surprisingly stable. It's a Manfrotto 500 video head with a replacement Kirk bridge that has a channel for their Arca clamp. An older iOptron Skyguider Pro is on the video head. The whole thing sits on top of a 75mm ball and video bowl so I can level it out, and in this case, it's on an RRS TVC-34 tripod.
I can use the video head part without the tracker in place of my regular gimbal setup too, which is an older, bigger RRS pano arm setup. The video head and bridge is around 2lbs, and much smaller and easier to pack than the pano arm.
The ballhead sitting on the business end of the tracker lets me aim the camera. The tracker comes with an arm and counterweights if I wanted to use heavier camera setups, but so far this is enough for me. I have an Alyn Wallace V mount coming so the ballhead will be in a more intuitive position for aiming, as well as a Moveshootmove Nomad, which is a smaller, lighter tracker. The iOptron is really built for heavier setups for deep sky objects or planets, which I don't need for astro landscapes.
I had prototyped this with a Manfrotto N8 head and a clamp bolted to a Manfrotto plate, and when that showed a lot of promise, I built this dedicated setup. Its main limitation is how accurately I can align the tracker with the axis of Earth's rotation. In my backyard, where I can't see Polaris, I have to use a phone app to do the alignment: PS Align pro is the best one even though it's annoying to use. I tried 3D printing brackets to hold the phone while I tweak the alignment, but those were wildly inaccurate: if I hold my phone against the top of the star tracker, that gets me good enough alignment for 30 second exposures with an 85mm lens, which is pretty good actually. I think I can actually get to 135mm in that setup with no problem. If I can sight Polaris, then I can probably get to longer exposures. Stability isn't an issue though I need to make sure I really lock down the video head: it's a low-end head, and has issues that all cheap heads have.
I have a laser I can screw into the tracker's polar scope to get me pointed near Polaris, and then I'd use the polar scope to get the alignment to its final place.
I haven't taken anything worth showing yet, but have some exposures of the Orion Nebula (only 16 shots of 15 seconds each with the 135 Plena on a Z6II) that I ran through a light astro post workflow (Siril stacking basically) just to see what the setup can do. It's also winter, so the Milky Way isn't in any place that's great for my local landscape. I've also tried the Z9 with the 85/1.2S on the prototype setup, and that was good for 30-60 second exposures but silly heavy and really unnecessary, especially because the 85 shows coma near wide open in the corners. I haven't tested the other S lenses yet, but I think their astro performance is generally well-known.
I'm an avid visual astronomer (I've 3D printed 4 binocular telescopes and have a bunch more commercial OTAs and mounts, and participate regularly in our local club's public star parties), but have never dipped my toes into astro photography, and I don't think I'll turn into one of those hardcore ones (I'd get a Seestar first), but I'd like to take pretty astro landscapes.
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I can use the video head part without the tracker in place of my regular gimbal setup too, which is an older, bigger RRS pano arm setup. The video head and bridge is around 2lbs, and much smaller and easier to pack than the pano arm.
The ballhead sitting on the business end of the tracker lets me aim the camera. The tracker comes with an arm and counterweights if I wanted to use heavier camera setups, but so far this is enough for me. I have an Alyn Wallace V mount coming so the ballhead will be in a more intuitive position for aiming, as well as a Moveshootmove Nomad, which is a smaller, lighter tracker. The iOptron is really built for heavier setups for deep sky objects or planets, which I don't need for astro landscapes.
I had prototyped this with a Manfrotto N8 head and a clamp bolted to a Manfrotto plate, and when that showed a lot of promise, I built this dedicated setup. Its main limitation is how accurately I can align the tracker with the axis of Earth's rotation. In my backyard, where I can't see Polaris, I have to use a phone app to do the alignment: PS Align pro is the best one even though it's annoying to use. I tried 3D printing brackets to hold the phone while I tweak the alignment, but those were wildly inaccurate: if I hold my phone against the top of the star tracker, that gets me good enough alignment for 30 second exposures with an 85mm lens, which is pretty good actually. I think I can actually get to 135mm in that setup with no problem. If I can sight Polaris, then I can probably get to longer exposures. Stability isn't an issue though I need to make sure I really lock down the video head: it's a low-end head, and has issues that all cheap heads have.
I have a laser I can screw into the tracker's polar scope to get me pointed near Polaris, and then I'd use the polar scope to get the alignment to its final place.
I haven't taken anything worth showing yet, but have some exposures of the Orion Nebula (only 16 shots of 15 seconds each with the 135 Plena on a Z6II) that I ran through a light astro post workflow (Siril stacking basically) just to see what the setup can do. It's also winter, so the Milky Way isn't in any place that's great for my local landscape. I've also tried the Z9 with the 85/1.2S on the prototype setup, and that was good for 30-60 second exposures but silly heavy and really unnecessary, especially because the 85 shows coma near wide open in the corners. I haven't tested the other S lenses yet, but I think their astro performance is generally well-known.
I'm an avid visual astronomer (I've 3D printed 4 binocular telescopes and have a bunch more commercial OTAs and mounts, and participate regularly in our local club's public star parties), but have never dipped my toes into astro photography, and I don't think I'll turn into one of those hardcore ones (I'd get a Seestar first), but I'd like to take pretty astro landscapes.
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