Sky Watcher Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTI Mount Kit with Counterweight, CW bar, Tripod, and Pier Extension - Full GoTo EQ Tracking Mount for Portable and Lightweight Astrophotography

I used this for the first time a couple of days ago after buying about 90 days ago (delay due to cloudy skies only). I don't have a telescope, but an 800mm/F11 prime lens and a 2x teleconverter on a 30MP Canon body, so 32x magnification from effectively 1600mm/F22. The lens field-of-view is about 1.5 degrees and once the Star Adventurer GTI was aligned it kept my target (Mars) centrally placed in the viewfinder for over two hours, the drift was probably about a half degree over two hours. I was using a bluetooth remote control shutter release and the camera display rather than the eyepiece as a viewfinder so could have sat in a garden chair while taking over 90 frames without touching camera or tripod the whole time. The individual shot are great given they are from a camera and slow prime lens. Stacked frames are even better, with the stacking software allowing me to compensate for what looks like over-exposure but the yellow/orange color could only be forced to be red so I left if as taken. I'll put that down as something learned for the next outing (don't use 30s/ISO800 shots for a magnitude 1.3 sky object). I'll probably switch to ISO 12800 (four stops faster) and 1/4s (seven stops slower shutter) or more. I used a long dovetail that attaches to aligned positions on the lens and camera and it all balanced easily with lots of room to spare on the counterweight bar. I had to use the high latitude counterweight position because even with the pier extension and at 40 degrees North the counterweight bar would contact the tripod on some object positions. The hardest thing is not a failure but it's worth knowing what a dovetail is and how it keeps your optical device on the mount because I admit it's a bit scary looking at over $4000 of camera gear almost hanging upside down from the mount at some viewing positions. It's definitely worth getting either the plug-in manual remote position adjustment device or the software for this because it has no built-in controls for correcting alignment beyond balancing the attached optical device and basic Polaris alignment, the controls on those are counter-intuitive but that's only a side-effect of the spherical alignment being performed. For the software I had lots (hundreds) of failures downloading the very large sized sky object databases on a good Internet connection. I wanted those given my 1.5 degree FOV lens combination. The first two pictures are 5 frame stacks of Mars and the third is a 300 pixel squared crop of Mars from a single 30 megapixel frame (less than 1% of the sensor frame). Over-exposure shows in the bright coloring, but I think there are still signs of surface relief on Mars given that the contrasting areas barely changes between frames or between different stacked frame combinations covering two hours of shooting.

The media could not be loaded. I'm not new to astrophotography but I am new to trackers and EQ mounts so there was definitely some nerves setting everything up the first time. The instructions were easy to follow and included pictures with all the pieces/knobs labeled. The app itself isn't the most user friendly to navigate, but connecting to the unit was a breeze and I was able to fumble my way through the app and navigate it to move from Polaris to the moon and back without needing instructions or tutorials.I'll update in the future with more thoughts once I get more experience with it but my initial impression is that it works very well, and the Go-To functionality is fantastic even if it's not perfect.Other notes: it had no issue holding my Nikon D850 with a normal telephoto lens. I also bought a Vevor 21x13x9 rolling hard case to store the unit and it's perfect. Highly recommend.

Used it for a few nights now. Does great on it primary job for tracking the stars. But we all know we dont get rated with 5 stars at our jobs for just doing the work. We need to go beyond, which this one does not, there is a lot of room for improvement. Whoever designed the battery compartment and the polar scope rear cover should be fired. That design just make the tracker and the company feel substandard. Every time before I mount the tracker on the tripod, the polar scope cover falls off.Another issue is the counterweight. The tracker is rated for 11lb but the included counter wight is not enough to properly balance over 10lb capacity. I had to get a 2.5lb bar weight and 3/4 inch washer to balance load over 10lb. Polar aligning with the app is a hit and miss. Couple of days it took only a few minutes to plate solve with 3 star alignment but sometimes it took me hours. No problems aligning with AsiAir. It would have been nice if there are markings to show whether the dec/ra axis are parallel to the mount. No issues on tracking with 11 lb payload so far(svbony 550 80, flatener, Canon T7i, svbony sv165 scope, Asi120 mini guide camera, asiair, dew heater, dot finder). Able to track dsos upto 2 minutes without guiding and 5 minutes guided.

For the price point, it is a great go-to mount for compact set ups (max payload weight 11 lbs/4.98 kg). The tracking isnt bad once you have calibrated it, easy to set up and connect to the app.The weight is slightly heavier than what I was expecting, but definitely needed based on your set up. The legs can easily be upgraded down the road if you're looking for something more sturdy.Overall design is great but the cover for the sight lens is a tad bit flimsy and access to the batteries require a screw to be removed. Despite this, I would still recommend this product for anyone looking for a go-to set up.