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Timelapse Tests with Star Adventurer

Started by Mike, May 18, 2015, 09:09:56

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Mike

Thanks Fay for lending me your Star Adventurer at DSC.

I did a couple of tests with it. One for timelapse panning and one for sidereal tracking. I made a short timelapse video out of each sequence. Here are the results. Raw images with no processing :

VIDEO 1

VIDEO 2

I obviously polar aligned on a star that wasn't Polaris as you can see it was off.

Overall I was very impressed with the Star Adventurer. Nicely engineered tiny driven mount head with some nice features. The only thing I was disappointed with was the timelapse feature that would only pan a maximum of 60ยบ. I have been wondering if this limitation can be overcome somehow.

However, i'll definitely be getting one.
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. Carl Sagan

Fay

I may be reading it wrong, Mike, but on the instructions for timelapse it says it goes 90 deg and then reverses to go back 90 deg.
It is healthier to be mutton dressed as lamb, than mutton dressed as mutton!

Mike

No it was definitely 60 degrees Fay.
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. Carl Sagan

The Thing

I seem to recall various increments for the rotation, really only useable if you use the built-in shutter control. Manual here.

Mike

Duncan it will only rotate beyond 60 degrees in sidereal, solar, lunar or 0.5x sidereal. The useful rates for time lapse photography, i.e. 2x, 4x 6x 12x will only go as far as 60 degrees then it will go back the other way. Bit naff and not very well thought out.

I'm already thinking of replacing the controller board with an Arduino and writing my own software for it.
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. Carl Sagan

Kenny


Fay

Mike dont know what happened with the SGL link, but it was regarding doing what you have just suggested with  Arduino




It is healthier to be mutton dressed as lamb, than mutton dressed as mutton!

Mike

Fay I took a look at that. It was a project the guy started and never finished. However he has put up pictures of the internal workings which will help a lot. Thanks.
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. Carl Sagan

Fay

It is healthier to be mutton dressed as lamb, than mutton dressed as mutton!

Fay

Just remembered, I did a little dance in front of your time lapse, Mike, but it did not show up!
It is healthier to be mutton dressed as lamb, than mutton dressed as mutton!

RobertM


Kenny

Mike - What camera and settings did you use for Video 2?

Mike

Kenny it was a Nikon D7000 with an f2.8 10.5mm fisheye lens. Shots were 10 seconds each with a 5 second gap in between. The wonky angle was due to fixing the camera to a fixed telescope bracket and it needed to be a ball head to allow full adjustment.
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. Carl Sagan

Kenny

Thanks. Surprised by how much detail was captured with only 10 seconds of data. The advantage of a truly dark site.