Skywatcher

[MarkH]

Does anyone have any experience with the skywatcher star adventurer pro?  Does it do all they claim? Sounds like a bargain if it does.

[Carole]

Robert and Fay have used them, as has Mike but not sure how often he comes on the forum.  Also Roger had one but not sure how much has has used it.

Carole

[The Thing]

I've got one if you mean the SA with wedge, counterweight, RA mounting. Its very good after backlash adjustment and the advanced firmware. The USB port came off and had to be resoldered. Otherwise very well made with a large brass RA gear and worm.

[RobertM]

It is very good, best of the bunch in my opinion at the moment.  I have an AZ-GTi on it's way to test out and that promises to be slightly better if the specs are to be believed but, as always, the proof of the pudding...

I think it depends what you want to use it for ?

Robert

[MarkS]

Does anyone have any experience with the skywatcher star adventurer pro?  Does it do all they claim? Sounds like a bargain if it does.

It depends on what you mean by "does it do all they claim".  Who is "they"?  I've seen folk making some pretty outrageous claims about its ability.  But I've never seen anyone claim it "can support the weight of the Keck telescope and still give fractional arcsec tracking".

Mark

[ApophisAstros]

Does anyone have any experience with the skywatcher star adventurer pro?  Does it do all they claim? Sounds like a bargain if it does.

It depends on what you mean by "does it do all they claim".  Who is "they"?  I've seen folk making some pretty outrageous claims about its ability.  But I've never seen anyone claim it "can support the weight of the Keck telescope and still give fractional arcsec tracking".

Mark

Rather take the close council of colleagues like yourself and Carole, then you can be sure of advice.
Roger

[Carole]

I have no experience of this mount Roger.

[ApophisAstros]

I have no experience of this mount Roger.

No i meant generally re Marks comment about "who is they"comment.
Roger

[MarkH]

From your comments it seems like a good investment maybe I'll give it a try.

[RobertM]

I generally only use it for short exposures (circa 30s) but don't get any trailing once set up properly.  If you get one then, most probably, you will have to adjust the worm; on mine it did bind a bit so did need a tweek or two.  If you want to put anything more than a couple of kg on it then look at alternatives - I think the loading is supposed to be 5kg but at that level you wouldn't want to breathe near by.  It's not necessarily because of the SA itself but the wedge and tripod are the weakest points.

HTH
Robert