Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Tuesday 18 May 2021

The Ioptron Skytracker Pro

 As well as a telescope for my newly found hobbies of astronomy and astrophotography (which by the way still hasn’t arrived yet and I ordered it back at the start of January and its now May as I write this blog), I have just received an Ioptron skytracker Polar Pro.

Copyright: Ioptron

It is basically a compact, motorised one axis mount which precisely tracks the stars as they pass overhead of you. It has a maximum payload capacity of 6.6 pounds; weighs 2.5 lbs and is made of die-cast aluminium covered by ABS plastic. It has an internal battery (2000 mAh) which is rechargeable using a micro USB cable and it has 4 tracking speeds.

Copyright:AstroBackyard

And when I mean compact, I really do mean compact. It fits in my hand and my camera bag with no problem.

Well packaged it arrives in a padded bag. It is a snug fit. I struggle to get it in and out but I guess that means it won’t shift around!

Unpacking the kit, I discovered the mount, an alt-azimuth base, a brass 3/8 and ¼ inch threaded ball head mount plate, a charging cable and the polar scope. People will also need a ball head to mount their camera to the tracker. I just used one I had off my Joby Gorillapod.

Copyright: AstroBackyard

I’ve spent a couple of hours fiddling around with it working out how to set the latitude angle and also how to alter the horizontal plane as well and I think I have these worked out now. The polar scope has proved troublesome. This little scope has a scale reticule inside it which you use to line up the tracker with Polaris in the night sky. Sadly, my reticule seems to be a 90-degree angle to what it should be which does my head in when trying to do the simple alignment adjustments needed. I have contacted Rother Valley Optics and Ioptron to see if one of them can send me a new one.

Here is my problem. When the polar scope is correctly inserted into its holder as per the instruction manual, my reticule scale is not in the correct position. It is 90 degrees off to the left! 

I have yet to have a clear night where I can now get out and use it but I am assured by various astrophotography groups I subscribe to that I should now be able to take longer exposures of the night sky without any star trailing and that I should be able to capture images of distant nebulae and galaxies.

with the new tracker and some more on-line learning, I should be able to capture images like this using just my DSLR and the basic lenses. Above is the horsehead nebulae of Orion's belt and below the core of the Milky Way

I’m rather excited by this prospect. Anyway, the kit is coming with my Camera gear every time we now travel in Bryony (our motorhome) or Arwen (my 14’ cruising dinghy). I have the dark skies of Norfolk and North Wales beckoning me in the next few months along with planned voyages around the Fowey, Fal, Helford and Tamar rivers!

And now you can see why we have gone to the trouble of up-plating Bryony! It was the tow bar, the e bikes, the bike rack, the telescope and the camera gear wot did us in. Maggie would like to point out that when we recently went through all the stuff we could ditch out of Bryony, all she had that was her’s …. were her clothes and ………. a tiny 12v hair dryer!

I am still trying to live this down!

 

On Arwen, I haven’t yet decided whether to take the telescope in the boat. I am still trying how to keep it safe and waterproofed during a capsize. However, the tracker will come with me on each overnight trip now.

I will let you know how I get on with the tracker. This could be the start of a new interest group: ‘motorhoming astronomers!’

Clear skies, live long and prosper motorhoming buddies, and fair winds to all you sailors.

Steve

 

What are my initial impressions of the tracker?

Pros: Seems lightweight, portable, easy to put in camera rucksack. Fits on my standard photographic tripod. Has a good padded travel case. Construction seems solid. Well designed. Procedure to align tracker with Polaris seems straight forward from the videos I have watched thus far. Can be used in either northern or southern hemisphere – so will be taken on our future international travels as well. Easy to adjust. The associated app for locating Polaris works well. The motor is soundless, very impressive. There are four speeds – one for tracking night sky; one for night sky with landscape included; and two others for sun and moon tracking.

Cons: without the optional counterweight stem, then the payload is only 2.4lbs which is basically a DSLR and 50mm lens max so o telephoto lenses on it without the counterweight. Need to take all straps off your camera so they don’t catch the polar scope. Similarly make a little bag to hold your intervalometer so that it can be velcro’d to a tripod leg. That stops the cable from catching anything as the mount rotates.

If you would like to know more about how he tracker works, these videos should help






4 comments:

JP said...

Very tempted to get one of those - plus a counterweight so can put long lenses on it as otherwise it would only really usable with wide angles.

Does the camera have to be forward of the mount? In particular, can you mount via the foot of the lens so the camera is behind the mount?

Who did you order via?

steve said...

Hey JP - how are you - safe and well in these strange times I hope. I'm not quite sure I follow what you mean by mounting the foot of the lens so the camera is behind the mount. I can only mount the camera the way it shows. You can alter the angle of latitude(Tilt) so that the camera's centre of gravity is as central as possible but even that is slightly limited because the latitude axis goes to 60 degree one way but only 45 degrees or so the other. It would be worth looking up Peter Zelinka's videos on how he uses his for that answer. He does a good long one about setting this particular model up.
I got mine from rother valley optics - however it came with the wrong polar scope and although I have contacted them and they have promised to sort this for me - I haven't heard back from them yet since that promise five days ago. i have emailed them again to get an update on what is happening. Another team to try is first light optics - but they seem to have a huge number of delays getting their stock - I am still waiting on my telescope from them ordered in first week of January. I accept that it is due to circumstances beyond their control though.

JP said...

Large lenses have an adapter that allow it to be attached to the tripod. This is helpful as this can be set at the centre of balance of the camera + lens. If the camera is attached to the tripod with a heavy lens on it then it will be unbalanced and put stress on the mount or cause it to slip.

However I've seen videos when people have attached V or Z brackets on the mount that would give space for the camera to be behind the tracker. See this vid as an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTI5lkekjbs

He uses two trackers - the Move Shoot Move one (seems to be aimed at wide angle lenses) and the Star Adventurer Pro (which can handle heavier lenses)

Does seem to be all sorts of delays at the moment - astrophotography seems to be a popular lockdown hobby!

steve said...

Certainly is. Got the z on order. Had a successful night last night with bigger ball mount. Just got to learn how to do things now in affinity photo