#Sky watcher star adventurer pro

The polar scope is where you look to perform the polar alignment. The back of the star adventurer with the set of dials and the polar scope.

The back of the unit is dominated by the polar scope and by few dials with graduated scale. By loosening the clutch, you decouple the payload from the motor, and you can frame the target and compose the shot.

#Sky watcher star adventurer pro

With the clamp, we can mount our gear using the declination plate or the ball head adaptor included in the PRO pack.īy tightening the black ring, the clutch is engaged, and the motor can rotate the payload. The front of the star adventurer, with the large black clutch ring, is easy to manipulate when wearing gloves. The Star Adventurer is a DC electric motor integrating a polar scope.Īt the front of the unit, there is the mounting clamp for vixen style plates and the clutch. The Star Adventurer Detailed Review The Tracking Unit Built and assembly quality is generally good but can vary from mount to mount.The cumbersome and flimsy polar illuminator should have been integrated into the mount.There is no locking mechanism to prevent turning on the mount by accident when packing it back into the bag.The wedge does its job, but it is a bit flimsy, making it challenging to get a very precise polar alignment.Reliable even at -15✬ and with low power consumption.Complete range of accessories included in the PRO pack.Sits on any photographic tripod (the sturdier the better).Tracking works both in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere.I own both a red and a white model, and I don’t see any difference in their performances. Different paint jobs but the same excellent performances. The main difference, though, was in the paint job: the first models were black, then red, and now are painted in white. SkyWatcher began selling the Star Adventurer a few years ago, and we have seen at least three different versions of it. Motor speeds: Sidereal, Solar, Lunar, 0.5x, 2x, 6x, and 12x Sidereal.Introducing The SkyWatcher Star Adventurer: A Quick Overviewīefore going into details, let’s first have a quick look at the SkyWatcher Star Adventurer technical specs and at the Pros and Cons of this tracker Tech Specs When shopping for your first mount, my advice is to look past the pure performances and consider the big picture more. With a full-grown equatorial mount, my astrophotography would be much less enjoyable. A full-grown equatorial mount will be too much for me. I photograph with two star adventurers PRO, and when I go far, I need to carry even more stuff to spend the night out. The Star Adventurer offers me the best compromise between portability and astrophotography performances. To do astrophotography, I often need to move as far as 140km away from my place, park the car and walk on trails for 20 minutes before setting up for the night. Light pollution map for Belgium: I have to travel quite far from Brussels to get to a “rural” sky. Great if you can image from your garden with heavy telescopes, but I live in an apartment in Brussels, Belgium. If you’re not careful, with full-grown equatorial mounts, you can soon end up dealing with monsters like this. Star Tracker Vs Equatorial Mount: What To Buy?įull-grown equatorial mounts are superior to star trackers in many ways, offering better accuracy with heavier equipment and a computerized GOTO system to let you frame your target with ease.īut they are expensive, big and heavy, and require a power tank to work or, better, to be connected to the power grid. The image at the bottom shows the M42 region taken with the Star Adventurer. The top image shows M42 from a stack of 8 photos from a fixed tripod. Once you have aligned your mount to the celestial pole, you can start taking the kind of long exposures needed to reveal the many wonders of the night sky. While both allow to track the apparent movement of the stars, a tracker is smaller, lighter, and cheaper than a full-grown equatorial mount, making it the perfect device for beginners or astrophotographers on the move. Once aligned to the celestial pole, an equatorial mount track the sky without suffering from field rotation: every image will show the same field of view. But it can be frustrating and needlessly expensive if you don’t do your homework and let the “Gear Acquisition Syndrome” get you.Ī star tracker like the Star Adventurer is a miniaturized equatorial mount. 7) Conclusions Things To Consider Before Buying A TrackerĪstrophotography is a beautiful, rewarding, and educational hobby.