10
Finally got a proper star tracker after using a cheap tripod for years
I spent about $400 on a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer last month, and it's a total game changer. My old setup was just a basic camera tripod, so I was stuck with really short exposures before the stars would streak. I tried stacking hundreds of shots, but it was a huge pain and never looked that clean. With this tracker, I can do 2-minute exposures easily. I took it out to a dark site near Flagstaff last weekend and got my first real shot of the Orion Nebula. The detail is just so much better, and I'm not fighting blur anymore. Has anyone else made the jump to a tracker and found a specific target that finally looked right?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
the_joel28d ago
Oh man, I know that feeling! I tried the stacking thing for Andromeda and it was just a fuzzy mess. Getting a tracker made it look like an actual galaxy, not a smudge.
5
hayden5876d ago
Remember my first try at the Ring Nebula. Spent hours on a cold night taking hundreds of frames. Stacked them all and it just looked like a gray, out of focus donut. I was so bummed. Upgraded my mount later and tried again, and suddenly you could see the little hole in the middle. That detail made the whole frustrating process worth it.
2