Best Budget Mount

Mounts for astrophotography aren’t cheap and so inevitably to get a cheap mount up and running to the standard we need to take great space pics requires either a bit of ingenuity and effort or some  degree of compromise. In this section I will run through various possibilities…

Buying Second Hand

Skywatcher EQ5 (or EQ3) GOTO

PROs

  • With a bit of work these will guide to an accuracy of 1.4 arcsecs
  • EQ5 can carry a decent sized telescope 10kg/22lb
  • Portable
  • Can upgrade it to sub arcsec accuracy with a darkframe optics hypertune when your ready to up your game

CONS

  • Have to keep your eyes peeled for a cheap one
  • Have to be prepared to get your hands dirty
  • new mounts are better for instance the skywatcher eqm-35 achieves 1 arc second guiding.

Here is a good guide on how to tune up your old eq5 mount. There are two things to do. Firstly replace the gunky synta grease with more refined lithium grease. This will allow you to balance the scope more accurately which plays a big part in performance. The other important step is to get the worm gear meshing correctly with the cog wheel. Here is a step by step guide to removing the gunk by protostar on stargazer’s lounge website

Fancy a professional tune up

If you serious about astrophotography then I would recommend asking Dave Woods to tune up your second hand mount. . For £189 he will turn an eq3/5 mount into a sub arc second precision instruments. Here is a link to his website. FYI he tunes lots of other mounts too! Please mention astrobiscuit as he’s kindly agreed to support the channel with commission.

The Man who knows EVERYTHING about mounts: David Woods

Buying New

Skywatcher EQM-35

PROs

  • Really bloomin good! I am seriously impressed. Out the box it will give you roughly 1.2 arc second guiding accuracy.
  • Can carry a decent sized telescope 8kg/17lb
  • Portable

CONS

  • I think this mount is good value but its not budgety enough for folks who want to dip their toe into astrophotography. Maybe try here instead

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Keeping it small and cheap with a travel mount

Small telescopes are capable of taking amazing pictures and happily they don’t need to sit on big mount expensive mounts. The big surprise is that both the Skywatcher Star Adventurer and the AZ GTI (which needs to be tweaked in order to get it to work in EQ mode) are great when guiding. I admit there are other similar astrophotography travel mounts but these are the only one I’ve properly tested.  I’ve even stuck a little guide scope on the Star Adventurer and with good polar aligning I’ve managed 30 minute long subs a 60mm refractor (Tak fs60CB). The skywatcher 72 ed is as big a scope as I would recommend with these mounts.

Skywatcher Star Adventurer Pro Pack

PROs

  • Cheap
  • Surprisingly good whilst guiding: around 2 arc seconds
  • Super Portable
  • Easy to use

CONS

  • No GOTO function
  • Can only Guide in RA
  • Need a tripod
  • Can only carry small scopes

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Skywatcher AZ GTI

PROs

  • Cheap
  • Super Portable
  • Has a great GOTO function via phone app
  • Can connect to a computer via wifi allowing the use of serious and powerful astrophotography software like Nina

CONS

  • Is an ALT AZ Mount. In order to make it work in EQ mode you need to install firmware and cobble together a suitable mount which can be polar aligned. Brief description here (check)
  • Can only carry small scopes

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Sky-Watcher AZ-GTI (in Alt-Az mode)

Once you get the hang of the AZ GTI you can control the mount with your phone and point the scope to thousands of space objects at the touch of a button. As the mount tracks you can take exposures of up to about 30 seconds duration (but the exact figure depends on where in the sky you are shooting, the size of your camera’s sensor and your focal length. The wider your telescope or lens the bigger the problem you will have with field rotation and the shorter your exposures will have to be. I shot my first astrophotography video using an AZ mount.  You can checkout the video here. I often have problems when using this mount for deep space astrophotography in Alt Az mode. For me it works far better in EQ mode.

AZ-GTI in equatorial mode

If you are massively geeky like me you can take this mount to another level. By installing special firmware you can transform this alt az mount into an equatorial mount for serious long exposure small scope astrophotography. Of course you need to align the mount to the rotation of the earth (polar aligning) before this will work so you might need to fiddle with the tripod in order to achieve the correct angle. Once sorted this mount’s tracking accuracy is really impressive and it can be controlled via wifi from a computer running astroimaging software like APT. All in all this small motorized mount is incredibly powerful but his is probably not a good mount for the technophobe. If you are a technophobe then really the star adventurer is your mount.  If you think you can handle it then go for this. It is brilliant in EQ mode.

See Also…

  • Best Value Telescope for Astrophotography

    Best Value Telescope for Astrophotography

  • Choosing a Mount for astrophotography

    Choosing a Mount for astrophotography

  • Best All Round Telescope

    Best All Round Telescope

  • Deep Space Lucky Imaging

    Deep Space Lucky Imaging

  • Your First Astrophotography Rig

    Your First Astrophotography Rig

  • What can you see through a $10k Telescope vid drops tomorrow (sat) at far too early AM!

    What can you see through a $10k Telescope vid drops tomorrow (sat) at far too early AM!