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I picked a cheap mount over a fancy tracking one and my deep sky shots came out fine
Everyone in my astronomy club keeps pushing me to drop $1,200 on a goto tracking mount, but last spring I went the other way and bought a used manual EQ2 for $65 off a guy in Sacramento. For 5 nights I shot the Orion Nebula with just that mount and a cheap motor drive I added later. No fancy guiding, no laptop, no auto stuff. I polar aligned by eye, took 40 shots at 20 seconds each, and stacked them in free software. The result had a little star trailing, sure, but the nebula showed up clear and colorful. My club buddy looked at it and said 'that came from a 65 dollar mount?' I get why people love the high end gear, but I think the pressure to buy expensive tracking makes new folks quit before they even try. Has anyone else here gone cheap on purpose and been happy with what came out?
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taylor.brooke1mo ago
Whoa, a $65 mount actually pulled that off?
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