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Spent $130 on a used star tracker off Craigslist and it's the best money I've put into this hobby
Two hours of stacked shots from my driveway in Boise last Friday got me a cleaner shot of Andromeda than six months of unguided subs ever did, so now I'm wondering if anyone else here started with a tracker this cheap or if I just got lucky.
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wyatt_chen869d ago
Check the tracking accuracy before you credit the tracker itself for the cleaner shot. A lot of those cheap used trackers have periodic error that shows up more the longer you expose, so two hours of subs can still look great if you're guiding or if your polar alignment is tight, and it's really the alignment doing the work. Six months of unguided subs is a rough comparison because unguided is fighting drift the whole time no matter what mount you're on. You probably did get a good deal, but the jump in quality might be more about going from no tracking at all to any tracking at all than about this specific unit being special. Run a quick star trail test and see how smooth the motion is, that'll tell you if you got lucky or if any tracker would've done the same thing.
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