Bought a cheap star tracker that cost me a whole night of shooting

Grabbed a $150 tracker off Amazon for the Perseids last month. It drifted so bad my 30-second shots were all blurry. Ended up with nothing usable after four hours outside. Anyone know a solid budget tracker that actually holds alignment?

3 comments

3 Comments

hugobarnes3d ago

Wait, you tried to use that on the Perseids? That's a brutal test for any cheap tracker. Those things need solid polar alignment to even have a chance. My old Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer was the first one that actually worked for me, saved up for months.

kai_brown233d ago

Yeah, that's the thing, it's not just about the tracker itself. A big part of it is the polar alignment step. If that's off by even a little bit, you'll get drift no matter what gear you use. I spent a whole night just practicing that with a cheap red dot finder before my shots got any better.

shane2444h ago

My first tracker was a cheap one too. HugoBarnes is right, the Star Adventurer is a huge step up for nailing that polar alignment. It's the only way to get those clean long exposures.