Bought a cheap star tracker and it ruined a whole night of shooting the Orion Nebula

I spent $200 on a no-name tracker from an online ad, thinking I could save cash. It drifted so bad during my 3 minute exposures that every shot of M42 was just a blurry mess. What's a good budget tracker that actually works for deep sky stuff?

3 comments

3 Comments

hollypalmer2mo ago

Did you try balancing the tracker with a heavier counterweight? Sometimes those cheap ones need extra help to stay steady. I had a similar issue and adding weight to the opposite side of the mount made a huge difference. It won't fix a truly broken motor, but it can smooth out some of the shake. For a real fix, you might need to look at used brand name trackers. I see older Sky-Watcher Star Adventurers go for not much more than you spent.

leobrown1mo ago

Yeah, totally agree with that bit about cheap mounts being sensitive to balance. I messed around with a similar setup for months and the counterweight thing is honestly the first thing to try. I used a water bottle taped to the opposite side of the bar just to test it before buying a real weight. It actually stopped the jittering on short exposures up to like 30 seconds. But like you said, if the motor's got a bad spot in the gears, no amount of taping stuff on will fix it. The Star Adventurer is a solid bump up, I've seen people get good Andromeda shots with one that's a few years old.

anthony_sullivan72mo ago

My buddy had that exact same problem with a cheap tracker last year. He was trying for the Horsehead Nebula and got nothing but streaks. What @hollypalmer said about weight is spot on, those little mounts are super sensitive to balance. I read a whole forum thread where people said even a good polar alignment can't save a bad motor. For deep sky, you really need something that can handle the load without shaking. The used market is the way to go, like an older iOptron SkyGuider. It's a bit more money but it actually tracks right.