is any body aware of an equatorial aka German mount for a tripod to do astrophotography?
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Equatorial or German Mount
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- Thread starter RalphLambrecht
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Nicholas Lindan
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An equatorial mount usually comes with the telescope.
For a camera look for a "star tracker."
For a camera look for a "star tracker."
What do you mean? Equatorial mounts usually comes with a tripod.
There are quite a few designed for cameras that you just fit to your tripod -ranging from budget to astronomical pricing.
Best bet would be to ask a local stargazer shop, or astronomy group.
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Sky-Watcher brand.
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Here is a an overview, Ralph.
www.teleskop-express.de
Equatorial mountings point the main axis of movement to Polaris, the star at the virtual point of rotation of the earth. That way it is easier to follow a star as the earth keeps turning as you only need to adjust this one axis after you found your target in the sky.
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www.teleskop-express.de
Equatorial mountings point the main axis of movement to Polaris, the star at the virtual point of rotation of the earth. That way it is easier to follow a star as the earth keeps turning as you only need to adjust this one axis after you found your target in the sky.
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Nicholas Lindan
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Modern computerized astronomical camera trackers use two servo motors to point the camera/telescope to any point in the sky; there is no need for an equatorial mount. If the tracker knows where north is, knows the date and time and knows the longitude it can take it from there - it's just a load of calculations. You can command the tracker to point in any direction - if you have a sky map you can look up the coordinates for, say, Andromeda, enter them into the app on your phone and the tracker will point the camera at Andromeda. In the ultimate scenario you just drop the tracker/camera on a picnic table any old way, the mount gets all the data it needs from GPS, and you speak to the mount "Sombrero Galaxy" and there your camera will point.
And if you have a Sirius Cybernetics tracker, it will say: "It is my pleasure to point your camera for you, and my satisfaction in having the knowledge of a job well done."
And if you have a Sirius Cybernetics tracker, it will say: "It is my pleasure to point your camera for you, and my satisfaction in having the knowledge of a job well done."
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Astrophotography quickly becomes a very deep rabbit hole down which much money can be poured, sort of like a hole in the water without a boat.
Many current trends in astrophotography involve digital sensors and taking a lot of short exposures and stacking them. If you take short enough exposures, and have a relatively short focal length lens, then you can use an alt-azimuth mount and the short exposures minimize field rotation; the stacking software takes the rotation out. This is attractive to many people because they can use an alt-azimuth mount and there are mounts that will compute their own alignment after you point them at a couple of stars (or semi-automatically as some of the ones Nicholas is alluding to). There are mini-telescopes that will do all the stacking in their own software, and so on.
If you want to take long exposures, which you'll have to with film, then you need to get an equatorial mount, to align the polar axis, and have some kind of motor drive. (You can also put an equatorial wedge under an alt-azimuth mount to turn it into equatorial, but I think this can be mechanically unsatisfactory especially at mid-high latitudes.)
Many current trends in astrophotography involve digital sensors and taking a lot of short exposures and stacking them. If you take short enough exposures, and have a relatively short focal length lens, then you can use an alt-azimuth mount and the short exposures minimize field rotation; the stacking software takes the rotation out. This is attractive to many people because they can use an alt-azimuth mount and there are mounts that will compute their own alignment after you point them at a couple of stars (or semi-automatically as some of the ones Nicholas is alluding to). There are mini-telescopes that will do all the stacking in their own software, and so on.
If you want to take long exposures, which you'll have to with film, then you need to get an equatorial mount, to align the polar axis, and have some kind of motor drive. (You can also put an equatorial wedge under an alt-azimuth mount to turn it into equatorial, but I think this can be mechanically unsatisfactory especially at mid-high latitudes.)
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I still have trouble understanding the function. I can see how to tip the top to align for altitude, but I can't see how the assembly then rotates around the polar axis.
No, as I have no real world experience with one of those devices..
On the rare occasion I do some astrophotography, I piggy back my camera onto my 10" LX200 which sits on an eq mount.
Unfortunately my knees struggle with moving it somewhere dark enough these days.
This is NOT a go-to type as described earlier by someone else where GPS data feeds an automatic tracker (by far the easiest way to track the sky for pretty much as long as one wishes). This is sort of an equatorial mount and needs to be aligned with Polaris (in the North). Once aligned the built-in motor with several speeds to choose from will track the sky. Standard equatorial mounts, cheapest option, have manual tracking.
To put it simply, if tracking accuracy is what you need, for very long exposures it would be nice, equatorial mount will do the job, but it is far outdone by go-to mounts where all the tracking is done automatically.
Maybe THIS will help (got to 1:30 time mark to avoid earl annoyance)
You have it back to front.
For long exposures you need an equatorial mount, as a standard az-el mount does not correct for field rotation.
For planetary exposures, you can get by with an az-el mount.
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Go to a dedicated amateur astrophotography website. Just realize that "amateur" doesn't necessarily mean low budget. Some of these people are dedicated comet and planetoid hunters, and have "tripods" that cost fifty thousand dollars or more, and that are hauled in big trailers. But there is an awful lot of information available on those kinds of sites applicable even to casual practitioners, and they seem friendly to beginners. I bought my first Pentax 6x7 from a "tele" specialty dealer who also sold Celestron telescopes, plus the special mounts and drives.
I never got into it. But once in awhile I chatted with friends involved with multi-billion dollar telescopes. One of them opened up their old machine shop to amateurs once a week on Friday nights, so they could grind their own reflector scope mirrors (up to 18") - free workshops and coaching. That company started out mfg amateur telescopes in the 1920's, took on Govt gun scope contracts in WWII, and today are the world's leading maker of "big boy" ground based and space telescope mirror and aspheric lenses, including the correction lenses for the Hubble. Always admired them for taking personal time to help even beginners. That workshop was halted by the Covid epidemic; don't know if it has started up again or not.
I never got into it. But once in awhile I chatted with friends involved with multi-billion dollar telescopes. One of them opened up their old machine shop to amateurs once a week on Friday nights, so they could grind their own reflector scope mirrors (up to 18") - free workshops and coaching. That company started out mfg amateur telescopes in the 1920's, took on Govt gun scope contracts in WWII, and today are the world's leading maker of "big boy" ground based and space telescope mirror and aspheric lenses, including the correction lenses for the Hubble. Always admired them for taking personal time to help even beginners. That workshop was halted by the Covid epidemic; don't know if it has started up again or not.
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I have used the Vixen Polarie, Star Adventurer and a couple of others. With completely stand-alone units like the original Polarie, it's quite a hassle aligning it with the polar axis correctly: it's small, the extra-cost alignment tools are small, and the error margins are therefore quite high. It's not obvious when you're perfectly aligned. With others, there is an app which helps with the alignment and other things (the Polarie U). By the time I'd finished adding all the bits and pieces, it was about the same price as buying a used telescope with equatorial mount, and ditching the telescope.
I currently use a DwarfLab Dwarf 3, and it's replaced my camera setup completely: auto-alignment, auto stacking, star chart with scheduler, etc. It can sit on the floor or tripod and used as an altazimuth device, or attached to a simple wedge and used as an equatorial device for longer exposures. I'm in a city, so I'm taking photos of stuff I can't actually see. It's fun. But it's star fields, sun and moon only.
I currently use a DwarfLab Dwarf 3, and it's replaced my camera setup completely: auto-alignment, auto stacking, star chart with scheduler, etc. It can sit on the floor or tripod and used as an altazimuth device, or attached to a simple wedge and used as an equatorial device for longer exposures. I'm in a city, so I'm taking photos of stuff I can't actually see. It's fun. But it's star fields, sun and moon only.
It do
It doesn't. Visually Polaris is a fixed point in the sky - it doesn't rotate East to West like the other stars but instead rotates in a very tight circle around the true North Pole located a fraction of a degree away. So Polaris's position will change slightly during the night in both right accension (RA) and declination (DEC). The tracker only tracks in right accension so if your initial polar alignment was accurate you can get a couple or three minute exposures before having to re-cennter the subject. However the tracker has a ST-4 port for an autoguider which is a small telescope with a small camera that tracks a chosen guide star in the field of view. This will make slightly longer exposures possible but remember the tracker only tracks in right accension.
It doesn't. Visually Polaris is a fixed point in the sky - it doesn't rotate East to West like the other stars but instead rotates in a very tight circle around the true North Pole located a fraction of a degree away. So Polaris's position will change slightly during the night in both right accension (RA) and declination (DEC). The tracker only tracks in right accension so if your initial polar alignment was accurate you can get a couple or three minute exposures before having to re-cennter the subject. However the tracker has a ST-4 port for an autoguider which is a small telescope with a small camera that tracks a chosen guide star in the field of view. This will make slightly longer exposures possible but remember the tracker only tracks in right accension.
The tracker also has a polar scope witha reticle that allows for aligning with the true north celestial pole. However the tracker is a budget mount and not a multi thousand dollar mount with sophisticated encoders that track on both axis - and even they need to be re-centered over time. So you are going to have to re-center the target more frequently.
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