iOptron SkyGuider Pro Camera Mount Full Package

Normally I do my imaging with a very elaborate, expensive, heavy, and bulky setup. I wanted an ultra small/light setup for travel and fast setup. I have another Ioptron mount and it works great so thought this would be a good choice.I have used it with my Nikon D800 DSLR and lens ranging from 20mm to 300mm. Even with the 300 the sharps remain dots with exposures up to 3 minutes or more. The attached wide field shot of the Milky Way was shot with a 20mm lens and 6 minute exposure on the DSLR.My normal setup is a ATIK 940 EX cooled astro camera with the same Nikon lens. on the SkyGuider. I use a Bogen crutch leg tripod or a surveyors tripods. A heavy sturdy tripod is mandatory!The mount can take up to 11# of camera and lens via a setup that uses a counterweight. There is a version with just the mount and another one with the equatorial mount bracket, counter weight shaft and counter weight, and a attachment that lets you set it up in several configurations.That is the setup I have. I went with the photo kit which only adds a few bucks to the cost. The included polar alignment scope is very accurate and fast to setup. It takes just a couple of minutes to polar align.it very accurately using a free app for Android or Iphones that matches the observing location, time and date to where Polaris is in relation to the true North Celestial Pole. That information is used to locate Polaris on the circum polar circle in the finder scope.The guider itself hasa good sized gear with a brass worm drive. The transission from the motor is via a toothed rubber drive belt which will eliminate jitter. In short the drive is very smooth and accurate. The mount has siderial, lunar, and solar tracking rates as well as 1/2 siderial which is used when imaging the sky with landscape in the forground.The mount is unique in that it includes a autoguide port. I haven't used that yet although I do have a small autogfuider setup that would work with it. However, the mount is so good you may not need it.....I am trying to keep from adding a bunch of additional gear...so may never use that guider port. Note thouigh that since the mount tracks only is RA....the guider would only move in RA also. Since DEC shouldn 't be an issue with a good polar alignment you really won't need DEC guiding. I included a photo of the setup I use with the ATIK camera.Note that while this is a tracking mount there is no provision for GOTO or finding stars. You will have to find them yourself but if you know enough about astronomy that won't be a problem. The software I have allows me to focus and continually see where my ATIK camera is aimed. My Nidon was a little bit more difficult but I found a device that plugs into the camera hot shoe what can hold either a red dot finder or a green laser pointer to help you aim it.The only issue I had was the first one arrived with a bad battery that would not take or hold a charge. Adorama promtoply issued a RA and sent another one which has worked flawlessly. I have bought a lot of gear over the years from Adorama so can vouch for their company and service. By the way the internal battery is rechageable and lasts for up to 20 hours but you can also plug an external power supply to run the mount as well as recharge the battery. That connection also let you upload firmware updates when they come out. THere is a port to have a camera cable release on some cameras, but in my case it was redundant for what I alread have.In short this is an amazing device for astrophotography. It is easy to use, a qality product and well engineered. I will not give uip my more elaborate setup but this makes it easy to take great astrophotos......but it helps to have dark skies of course!

I use this to track the moon during the recent lunar eclipse and it worked beautifully on my tripod using a full size DSLR. It was complicated to initially setup and the instructions are basic but there are several great YouTube videos available. Comes with all the necessary pieces and the construction is very solid. It will take some practice to master. Plan to use this unit to do more wide field astrophotography this spring.

Let me admit that I've got a little experience with astrophotography, and I'm comfortable with polar aligning, celestial coordinates, and long exposure astrophotography, so my experience with this mount may be different than a photographer with limited astrophotography experience. That's not to say that astrophotography experience is required...but it helps. I digress...I bought this for a trip to the western United States after reading Trevor's review at Astrobackyard. After unboxing and testing it at my house, I was absolutely elated at how easy this is to use. This mount can be set up and polar aligned in minutes. Which reminds me...you need a heavy duty tripod for these portable tracking mounts. I've read reviews from several photographers that use portable tracking mounts like this one with a traditional camera tripod, and they say that the tripod just can't support the mount. I use a field tripod that came with a Meade 5" reflector telescope I got used last year. It handles the mount, camera gear, and counterbalance with ease. I'd suggest finding something similar. Many camera tripods are just too flimsy to hold the weight of this mount plus your camera.I'll never forget the first milky way photo I took from this mount. I was using an 11mm lens with 2 minute exposure time. When the shutter released for the first time, and I saw the first image preview... I knew right away it was special. I had never taken a wide field milky way shot like that. I zoomed in to 100% and all the stars were tight pinpoints. See attached milky way photo. I think that was only twelve 2 minute exposures. I also put a 50mm lens on and captured the Rho Ophiuchi complex near Scorpius, and the Cygnus constellation. Both times I was able to keep 100% of images shot with 2 minute exposure time. I haven't tried beyond 2 minutes. Hopefully the next time I chase the Milky Way I'll experiment more.If you're on the fence, and your budget allows, get this mount. If your budget doesn't allow, do it anyway. Its a real gem.

Awesome little mount. Tested it twice so far and I am able to do up to 4min exposures at 200mm focal length with no discernible trailing (this is close to the celestial equator too, pointing south). Also found out the drive on this little gem is belt driven (excellent for controlling backlash) with a closed loop servo motor (increased accuracy in maintaining tracking speed).I have the full kit btw, which includes the dec mount with the counterweight. I would say it is barely possible to put a small lightweight scope on it (the at65edq I own actually needs two counterweights to balance) but it would be pushing the mount to the limit imo. A decent telephoto on it (around 3-4 lb max) would be the sane limit I think.The only flaw I found is the polar scope. Others have reported theirs came perfectly aligned from the factory, mine did not. The folks at iOptron were very helpful in sending me instructions on how to align it, and it did partially fixed my issue, but there is still an optical misalignment I cannot correct. This is why I dinged it one star.But, would I buy it again? Yes, absolutely. It is the most compact, best bang for the buck little mount I have ever owned.