Added to this one! I'll try to remember to include it in all future uploads.

Astrohopper is designed to work with Alt-Az mounts and warns in the documentation that it will likely not work reliably for Equatorial mounts. I still want to try it sometime, but that is what's stopped me from making a video. Most astrophotographers use Equatorial mounts/trackers.

@@NebulaPhotos is the Star Adventurer an Alt-Az mount?

@@blackice5649 No, equatorial. Anything that needs to be polar aligned is equatorial. The most common alt-az mount is the 'Dobsonian Mount' that is the most common mount for Newtonian Reflectors when they are used for visual astronomy. That is really the use case that Astrohopper was designed for.

@@NebulaPhotos - Thanks - as an experiment, I'll try it with my Star Adventurer setup and let you know how it goes.

First five in this playlist are my major ones for learning deep sky with DSLR+Lens: kzbin.info/aero/PLrzbdmripj1cQ4nNQrocsyzlOR8KSG5AX I have another one coming this summer.

What comparisons did you want to see that were missing from the video?

I mostly bought into the Canon system of lenses/bodies before I even started with astrophotography so I've mostly stuck with that. The Astrotracer feature is neat, but I'm not sure if at this point with all the other options I have if it would justify investing in Pentax gear. Do you have it?

@@NebulaPhotosI have k1 ii, but i never used it for astro photography), except a few moon shots may be. but i'm seriously intented to start studing it, your content inspires me;) As for investing in pentax, the body is quite cheap on the used market, and you can find cheap and sharp lenses too, but those ⭐lenses are costly, HD lenses a bit cheaper. This camera is not just about the astrotracer, additionally you get crazy high dynamic range, high iso performance, in-camera pixel shift processing, handheld pixel shift, the best weather sealing out there and some other stuff.

With film you need tracking as it requires very long single exposures. I suppose you could scan and stack several exposures together, but even then each exposure would have to be a long one to see anything as film isn’t as sensitive as digital.

You shouldn’t be using any 1.25” accessories in attaching your camera to the telescope. 1.25” is a smaller diameter than APSC and isn’t designed to give correct backspacing, so you have two issues there. You need a 48mm Canon T adapter to attach the Canon t3i to the flattener or flattener/reducer. That will give you perfect backspacing and won’t vignette.

@@NebulaPhotos that is what I thought the problem is. I already ordered the right T-mount from High Point Scientific the day after I went out. It was the only part that i could imagine being the issue. Especially since it did the same thing with both flatteners. I will say, balancing the rig has been quite the challenge too. Hopefully i can test the new adapter this weekend. One last question, have you ever had an issue where your rig would only travel slightly more than halfway before the camera hits the tracker?

@@kevinashley478 No, I'm not sure what you mean. With the SWSA 2i you should be able to point anywhere in the sky without the camera hitting the tracker or tripod. Usually that is only a problem at zenith with very long scopes running into the tripod legs. With that tracker you don't have to worry about balance in both axes, only RA balancing the scope side with the counterweight side. With that scope, I imagine you will want the counterweight all the way out or very close to all the way out.

@@NebulaPhotos Right, so i have the green bar, the piece that the round metal rod screws into, all the way down as far as it can go. I have the weight all the way at the end of the metal rod. The declination part has an adapter on top, to accept the vixen dovetail. I am using about a 6-8 inch vixen dovetail bar (i think it is a william optics) on which the telescope is mounted. The bar is as far forward as it can be. The telescope has a fieled flattener and my T3i on the back of it. When I release the clutch, it will spin left and right and is balanced, but as i spin it further down, just a bit past halfway, the camera hits the top of the tripod where the star tracker is mounted to the tripod. Is that reasonable, or should that never happen? Basically, when you turn the payload and counterweight to horizontal for balancing, the top half is free and clear, but i cant move the camera much further without hitting the top of the tripod. Would it be better to send you a photo of what i am talking about?

@@kevinashley478 Is there any spot in the sky you can't aim at considering you can move the camera to both sides of the meridian? You can send a photo to nicocarver at gmail

It's been a while, but I think I edited in a single photo from the sequence to get the non-blurred foreground.

But I didn’t know you were (fairly) local here in New England!