Thought I'd do a quick post about my latest toy, the new Sky Adventurer from SkyWatcher.
For those who don't know what it is, it's a small portable tracking head for DSLRs that fits on top of a standard photographic tripod. I purchased it as a bundle from
First Light Optics whom I can highly recommend but in no way connected with.
Tring Astro will probably do you a very good deal also. You can however purchase the mount on its own. Until now I've been using an
AstroTrac which are extremely good but I have to say this looks like blowing it out of the water in terms of price.
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| My current set up |
In the bundle is...
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| Sky Adventurer Wedge |
The wedge is quite good for the price. It's obviously not quite in the same league as the sort you'd expect on a scope mount but then again it doesn't cost anywhere near as much and doesn't really have to carry much weight. I particularly like the fact the a single screw adjusts the elevation rather than the traditional push-pull affair (the lever on the side clamps it all off once aligned). I was in two minds as to whether to use the wedge or carry on with my geared Manfrotto head (which allows fine adjustment in three axes). To be honest I'm still in two minds - the geared head is better in all respects but not as compact or lightweight as the wedge. Must point out at this stage that the picture above is a black wedge but as you can see below mine is in sexy red and black to match the mount :)
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| DoveTail |
The dovetail I have to confess is less useful to me as I don't have a scope that I want to mount on it at present. The large thing sticking up on the left is the DSLR mount. This is adjustable in that you can rotate the camera and with the ability to rotate the bar on the mount also you could probably point the DSLR in most directions. It also allows you to mount a DLSR and a scope (albeit a small one) side by side. To be honest, if you only want to use a DLSR then a decent ball head is far more flexible and much easier to point at your target. I did experiment with mounting my ball head onto the dovetail but in the end found the DLSR adapter far more straightforward.
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| DSLR adapter |
The small DSLR adapter is my preferred method of connecting my ball head to the mount. It is in effect a very small dovetail with a screw thread to fit tripod heads.
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| Manfrotto ball head fitted to the DSLR adapter |
There is also a counterweight bar which I don't yet have. However, I don't really anticipate fitting anything heavy enough to need it.
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| The mount |
And last but not least the mount (shown above on the wedge). As c an be seen it's got a built in polar scope which is I have to say very good as polar scopes go. It comes with a small LED light thing that stuffs in the other end - it just about works but is fairly poor IMO (then again the one on the AstroTrac is). In my experience it is far simpler to shine a red torch at the end :)
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| View of the connection to the tripod |
The picture above shows how it attaches to a 'standard' tripod. Mine is a typical Manfrotto tripod so the wedge literally just screws to the top.
This is the point where I run out of material :)
So far I've only been able to get outside with it once and being the height of summer it wasn't all that dark. Polar alignment was a doddle, unlike with the polar scope on the AstroTrac that is on an extending arm (and falls off) the Adventurer's PS is a proper one that goes through the mount's axis. There's a big ring under the dovetail plate that acts as a clutch. Loosening this off allows the plate and hence the polar scope to rotate. As it was light I decided to just take some random shots at ISO100 with my 40mm lens to see how good the tracking was. To be honest I wasn't expecting it to match the standard of the AstroTrac but was never the lest amazed. I managed to get some 2min exposures before the light overwhelmed the images. Below is an image of 5 such frames stacked. As can be seen the stars are pretty round still.
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| Crop of raw 2min sub |
On the whole, very please with it so far. Can't wait to try it out properly.
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