Page 94 - BBC Sky at Night - September 2017 UK

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FIRST LIGHT See an interactive 360° model of this mount at
www.skyatnightmagazine.com/skyguipro

iOptron SkyGuider Pro

tracking mount

A revised variant of a popular camera mount with plenty of surprises
WORDS: PAUL MONEY

amera tracking mounts have exploded EOS 300D DSLR with a 16mm wide-angle lens, and
VITAL STATS in popularity over the past few years, taking test exposures of the Milky Way in Cygnus
a trend iOptron has been at the and Lyra lasting for five, 10 and 20 minutes. The
• Price £449 Cforefront of. This variant is a fresh light summer sky meant we had to stop the last
• Latitude adjustment look at the original SkyGuider, which we exposure down to f/11, but the stars were pinpoint
–30º to 65°
• Tracking rates reviewed in our July 2014 issue. and not trailed on close examination. Swapping to
Sidereal, half-sidereal, The SkyGuider Pro is supplied in a soft padded a 70-300mm lens set to 70mm and f/5.6, we took a
lunar and solar, for case, along with a dec. camera mounting block, five-minute exposure of the Cygnus region. Again,
both hemispheres a dec. mounting bracket with camera-mounting there was no star trailing.
• Polarscope Illuminated disc, an integrated illuminated polarscope, a 1.35kg If you want to use a heavy lens on your camera,
with 6° field of view counterweight and counterweight shaft, and a you may need to remove the ball head and mounting
• Power Internal Vixen-type dovetail saddle. You’ll also find a micro block, swapping them for the dec. mounting bracket
rechargeable Li-Poly USB charging cable and a clearly written manual in and counterweight to achieve balance. In this
battery, 3.7V, the box. Power comes from an internal Li-Poly configuration we took one-minute exposures of
2000mAh
• Extras Vixen-type 3.7V, 2000mAh battery that can be recharged by the star cluster M11 with the same DSLR and a
dovetail, dec. using the supplied micro USB cable when the 100-400mm lens set at 400mm. The image
mounting block & mount is connected to a computer, smartphone was likewise free of star trails. >
bracket, 1.35kg charger or portable battery pack. In the course of
counterweight plus our review we used the SkyGuider Pro for
shaft, mini USB cable, around 12 hours; iOptron states that a COMPACT,
soft case single charge can provide up to 20
• Weight 1.45kg without hours of use in ideal conditions. PORTABLE
counterweight and shaft
• Supplier Altair Astro A slew of choices AND VERSATILE
• www.altairastro.com
• Tel 01263 731505 Assembly was quick and
straightforward, though you do We were impressed with how sturdy the camera
have several options depending on mount is given its weight: just 1kg without the
SKY SAYS… the sort of imaging you have in mind. altaz base and 1.45kg with it attached.
On its own, the camera mount
The SkyGuider The mount’s adjustable altaz base is detachable fits into the palm of your
Pro’s adjustable – a new feature of this variant of the mount – so hand, and along with its
you could simply remove the base, attach the mount
altaz base is accessories fits into a
directly to a standard tripod and use the tripod’s convenient padded
detachable – a
own pan/tilt mechanism for polar alignment case. You only need to
new feature of adjustment. In this configuration, the mount can add your camera gear
this variant of also be used for slow-motion terrestrial panoramic and tripod to create an
ideal travelling system that
the mount photography. That being said, we did find that could be taken anywhere in
making the sorts of adjustments to polar alignment the world. Offering the ability
you need for astronomical purposes became much to capture both wide star fields,
easier by adding the altaz base to the tripod. To and closer views of nebulae
and other large deep-sky
WWW.THESECRETSTUDIO.NET X 8 iOptron Polar Scope available for iOS and Android. Throw in the excellent tracking for
aid with this there is a free smartphone app called
targets, there are plenty of
targets to keep this system busy
In this configuration, you must polar align first
for hours of imaging at a time.
before adding the camera mounting block, as it
covers the view through the polarscope.
visual use and it also has use
for solar eclipse chasing.
We tested this second setup by attaching the
mount, ball head and our own modified Canon
skyatnightmagazine.com 2017