Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer – Star tracker review

Above – The Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer with Canon Eos R and Canon 70-200 f2.8 mounted on top.

With the popularity of DSLR wide field astrophotography, nightscapes and general night sky photography, quite a lot are looking at how they can take better, cleaner images of the night sky or expand their opportunities with their current DSLR kits.

A while ago I was in the same position so I started researching the various star trackers on the market and settled on buying the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer. The reason for this choice was it was getting good reviews and seemed a bit more capable with larger lenses than other similar sized/priced trackers due to features such as Sky-Watcher’s fine tuning mounting assembly, equatorial wedge and counterweight. This “review” will be based on this kit, not the other available configurations.

The following “review” is not an in depth technical review, more my thoughts on the Star Adventurer, from my level of experience. I am not a highly experienced astrophotographer and am very much at the beginning of my journey when it comes to using star tracking mounts , but I think this is what will make this review a little unique and useful to those looking to add a star tracking mount to their kits to expand their capabilities. I think it will also remove some of the fear some have with how difficult it is to use a tracking mount.

Before I go any further here is some information/specs directly from Skywatcher Australia for the kit I purchased.

Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Motorised Mount – Astro Package

The Star Adventurer Astro Package is an ultra portable equatorial mount kit ideal for small telescopes or for astrophotography with camera lenses up to 200-300mm in focal length. It fits on most astronomical, photo, or video tripods via its 1/4″ and 3/8″ adaptor. The mount satisfies all the needs of the astrophotographer; with a simple turn of the dial select lunar, solar, or star tracking modes, or four speeds from 0.5x to 12x to create interesting time-lapse videos with your DSLR. Moreover, it contains pre-programmed parameters to assist your DSLR via the optional shutter release cable. The Star Adventurer mount features a V-style dovetail saddle for compatible accessories and optical tube assemblies. The mount can be supplied with 4 AA batteries or via mini USB port.

Precise Polar Alignment for Pinpoint Stars Astrophotography

The integrated Polar Scope with an included illuminator helps the polar alignment process in both the Northern or Southern hemispheres. That is a great advantage for achieving professional astronomical photos. The equatorial wedge is equipped with fine adjustment knobs in both azimuth and latitude axes for easily centring the celestial pole without moving the tripod. Additionally, the autoguide system enhances the tracking in right ascension allowing longer exposures with telephoto lenses.

To fit a camera to the Star Adventurer, either a tripod Ball Head is required (not supplied) or the Dovetail L-Bracket. The Dovetail L-Bracket, used in conjunction with the optional counterweight shaft/counterweight also allows small telescopes (e.g. Maksutov 90mm), with a 1/4″-20 tripod fitting, to be used with the Star Adventurer. A small telescope and camera (using a ball head, not supplied) can be mounted simultaneously on the Dovetail L-bracket. Using just the dovetail bar from the Dovetail L-Bracket, two cameras can be mounted at the same time using two tripod ball heads (not supplied).

In the Box:

Star Adventurer Mount Head (Black)
Ball head adaptor
Polar scope
Illuminator for polar scope
Adjustable Dovetail L-Bracket with Declination Fine Adjustment
Equatorial wedge (Black)
Counterweight shaft
1kg counterweight

SPECIFICATIONS


Mount Type	Equatorial Mount
Telescope Mounting	V Style
Payload	5kg (with counterweight)
Mount Head Weight	1.2kg
Latitude Range	0-90°
Power Requirement	4 x AA batteries, up to 72 hr Mini-USB port for external power

Back to my review……….

Above- The Star Adventurer kit

Firstly what does a star tracker or equatorial mount do? It compensates for earths rotation by rotating on the same axis as the earth just in the opposite direction, giving the ability to photograph night sky objects without star trailing, breaking rules such as the 600/500 rule mentioned in my Basic Nightsky Photography tutorial and allowing much longer shutter speeds.

The Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer is available in a couple of different configurations. I chose to buy the full Skywatcher Star Adventurer kit complete with equatorial wedge, ball head adapter, fine tuning mounting assembly and counter weight. These sell for around $700 AUD which I personally think is good value given we spend a lot more on decent lenses for our DSLR’s and a star tracking mount can really increase your night sky opportunities and help you create higher quality nightscapes.

Above-The Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer motorised head

Above- Equatorial wedge

Above- Fine tuning mounting assembly

Above – Counter weight

Above-polar scope illuminator. It takes a readily available CR2032 battery.

The above images are of some of the items that come in with the Star Adventurer kit although not shown is the 3/8 ball head adapter that allows a ball head to be attached directly to the Star Adventurer if desired and the 1/4 to 3/8 convert screw adapter which is included to allow the Star adventurer to mount to various tripods.

Build Quality

The main body of the Star Adventurer is metal, it is solid and great quality, parts like the mode dial, clutch, battery cover and polar scope cover are plastic but feel solid enough, the polar scope is also metal (and glass). The equatorial wedge and fine tune mounting bracket are similar, the main parts are made of metal with knobs, adjusters, made of solid plastic. The polar scope illuminator is made mainly of plastic. All in all the Star Adventurer is very good quality, solid and well built. It is a quality product.

Functions/Abilities

Although I have not used all the functions and abilities available on this mount, I have only used it to track stars with one camera attached via the fine tune mounting assembly, I thought it was well worth mentioning a few.

The mount can be used in multiple configurations – Multiple cameras mounted via ball heads, camera and small telescope along with auto guider, single camera via ball head adapter and of course the way I have been using the mount, camera attached via the fine tuning mounting assembly with attached counter weight as a small equatorial mount.

Above you can see the mode dial, rotating it allows you to choose the mode you wish to use.

OFF
STAR = Celestial tracking
SUN = Solar tracking
MOON = Lunar tracking
0.5x = 48hr revolution
2x = 12 hr revolution
6x = 4hr revolution
12 x = 2hr revolution

The 0.5x, 2x, 6x, 12x I believe are for the time-lapse functions of the star adventurer, this is not something I have used, I plan on using these over this coming “Milky-way” season and writing a post specifically about the Sky-Watchers time-lapse features. On reading about these time-lapse functions I have found Sky-Watcher also has a firmware update that increases the functionality of the mount for time-lapse, adding some very unique features to this mount. You can find more about this advanced firmware here.

Above we can see the other side of the Star Adventurer, here we have a slide switch N, Time-lapse and S. N you set for celestial object tracking if you are in the Northern Hemisphere, S you set for celestial tracking if in the Southern Hemisphere (you can see I have it set to S as I’m in the Southern hemisphere) and the middle position, Time lapse, is to set the Star Adventurer in time-lapse mode.

Above the slide switch we have two direction buttons, you can use these to slew the Star Adventurer to help position the camera lens, personally I undo the clutch on the front and manually position my camera to point at the object I want to photograph then re-lock the clutch rather than use these direction buttons but for long lenses/telescopes I can see these being very useful.

Below the slide switch we can see a snap port for connecting your camera so the star adventurer fires your camera’s shutter. I don’t use this myself as I like to use an intervalometer attached to my camera, although it does work and I have tested it with my Canon EOS R. We also have a Auto guider port/connection for attaching an auto guider, something I have never used but I believe is very useful for deep space astrophotography and is something missing from most smaller mounts, it adds to the abilities of this mount for astrophotography. We also have a mini USB port for upgrading firmware and also powering the unit, although I think most will simply use batteries, the star adventurer uses 4xAA batteries for power, this is how I have powered the mount and have been able to power it for days on one set. TIP remove a battery when the Star adventurer is not in use so it does not accidentally switch on if bumped.

You can find the more information about the Star Adventurer here, Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Instruction Manual

Above – The Star Adventurer can be powered by 4AA batteries or via usb.

Using the Star Adventurer

Now I have spoken about the actual mount and some of it’s abilities I will talk about how I have been using the mount and give some information about some of the images I have captured. I am not going to go through polar alignment procedures here as I will save that for a quick tutorial in the future, I plan on building a resource for using the Star Adventurer here on Nightscape Photographer.

You would have noticed the Star Adventurer kit does not come with a tripod, this is because you can mount it to any tripod, I have used mine mounted to my Benro Travel Angel and my Benro Mach 3 both work well as both are quite solid tripods, my advice here is if you do not have a solid tripod invest in one if you plan on buying one of these mounts, actually do it anyway if you are serious about your night photography. Sky-Watcher sell a tripod to suit the mount that is really well priced, I haven’t used or seen one but I think it would be worth checking out if you need a solid base for the Star Adventurer.

I carry the whole Star Adventurer kit minus the tripod in a Lowepro event messenger 250 camera bag, this ensures I have everything ready to go when I need it, including batteries, I just need to pack the bag in the car.

You can see above that I have my Canon EOS R and Canon 70-200 f2.8 mounted directly to the fine-tuning mounting assembly via the lenses tripod colar, I like this combination as its easy to rotate the lens to help with composing images. I have also used a ball head on top of the mounting assembly to help with composing and it works well too.

That is the Star Adventurer on the left mounted to my tripod with Sony a6500 and Samyang 85mm f1.8 lens attached, on the right is the Skywatcher HEQ5. You can see just how much smaller and portable the Star Adventurer is in comparison to your average equatorial mount, this is a big reason why I have settled for the Star Adventurer as my mount, it suits my needs of portability.

A quick guide to setting up

I mentioned I would not go through the precise polar alignment process but thought I would run through a quick rough alignment method that can get you into the ballpark, this is how I aligned for most of the following images, although not ideal, a lot shooting wide lenses will be quite happy quickly aligning like this.

Firstly I mount my star adventurer, minus the fine tuning mount and counter weight to my tripod and face it all in the rough direction of celestial south, there’s lots of methods for roughly identifying this area, using the Southern cross, Rigel Kent and Hadar as a guide or finding the middle point between Hadar and Achernar (lots of tutorials on the web and You Tube). If you are unsure where these objects are in the night sky, the app stellarium is fantastic, and a tool every night sky photographer should have.

I then level the whole set up using the spirit level on the base of the Star Adventurer’s equatorial wedge and set the latitude on the equatorial wedge. To find your latitude you can use the the Star Adventurer mini or “SAM” app found here for android and here for iPhone. Although this app is for the Star Adventurer mini it is really useful for the Star adventurer for both finding out your latitude and helping with correct polar alignment. In the app, enter the polar clock utility and press the location tab at the top right, you will see your latitude, mine is approx 38 degrees south. I then use a free inclinometer app on my phone to adjust my latitude on the wedge by placing the edge of my phone on the battery compartment of the Star Adventurer and adjusting the wedge to my appropriate latitude, 38. This is your rough alignment done, note I say rough. This is the point where I would use the built in polar scope to precisely polar align the mount but as mentioned I will write a tutorial on that at a later date.

I then mount my fine tuning mount bracket, weight, camera and lens and balance it all. To balance it, making sure the clutch on the front of the mount is loosened, rotate the camera and counter weight sideways and set the weight and slide the fine tuning bracket into a position that the whole kit is balanced, once balanced you can line up your night sky target, lock the clutch, set the mode dial appropriately, set the hemisphere with the slide switch (S for us here in Australia) and start taking images, the mount is tracking your subject. You can fire the shutter a number of ways, using the snap port, using an wireless intervalometer attached to the camera like I do (see the picture above, on top of my camera ), using a wired shutter release or like I have on occasion use the shutter button on the camera with the 2 second timer enabled, Again I will stress this is a rough alignment and is not Ideal, a proper polar alignment will give you more consistent results and longer shutter speeds without star trailing.

Above- The spirit level on the base of the equatorial wedge.

Above- setting your latitude is quite easy, you can roughly set it with the scale on the equatorial wedge or better yet use an inclinometer like I mentioned above.

Images taken with the Star Adventurer

So what’s achievable using the Star Adventurer? I have seen some amazing images taken with this mount that are simply mind blowing using both simple set ups for tracked wide field milky way composites, to deep space objects using telescopes, auto guiders and sophisticated post processing techniques. But I can only really comment on how I have used the mount, so here are some of my own images taken with the Star Adventurer and how I captured them.

Above is a wide image of the Milkyway, you can see the Lagoon and Trifid nebula in the centre, Rho Opiuchi up the top. To capture this image I used a rough polar alignment as described above with the following gear, Canon 6d, Canon 70-200 f2.8 mounted on the Star adventurer and Benro travel angel. It is a panoramic of 39 seperate images shot at the following settings 70mm, f2.8, iso1600 and exposure of 1 minute for each single shot, it was then stitched using Photoshop and post processed in both Lightroom and Photoshop.

As you can see the longer shutter speed I was able to use because the star adventurer was tracking the stars has allowed me to use a lower iso for a clean image it has also pulled a lot of detail from the sky. You could do similar using a wide-angle lens to capture the detail in one shot or multiple shots to then stack for further noise reduction.

Honestly it blew me away when I saw this finished image as it was one of the first I had shot with the Star Adventurer and I really fumbled my way around on the night composing each frame, aligning the mount etc. I think it is a good example of what the mount is capable of for someone new to tracked astro with a little post processing knowledge, I really think this is quite achievable to anyone with a little practice.

Above is a composite using the previous Milkyway image and an image I shot during the day with my Fujifilm xt10, it is simply astro art not a true representation of the scene, although it could be quite close depending on the time of year. We are seeing a lot of composites and blends where the photographer has shot the sky portion tracked with a mount such as the Star Adventurer and then shot the foreground at a different time of day this method can be used to create composites like above. Or similarly you could create a blend of images from the same location at almost the same time using a tracked sky (for low iso and maximium detail) and then long exposure foreground for maximum image quality (low iso) to capture the scene in front of the photographer. This is just a couple of ways you can use a tracking mount to create your images.

Again above I used the same tracked Milkyway image and composited it with an image I took during a mountain bike race, I obviously couldn’t carry a Star Adventurer with me for hundreds of kilometres and days on end but only a few hours after taking the foreground hut image I was riding under the stars only a few kilometres away imagining what it would of been like to be taking images at this location at night, so when I got home I created the scene I had in my mind. Again it’s more art than real but It did help me win the Bikepacking.com best themed series photography award. It is not for everyone but is another example of how I have used images shot with the Star Adventurer.

Above Rho Ophiuchi, again using a rough alignment method as above. I was able to get a sharp 120second exposure, using Samyang’s 85mm XP f1.2 lens and Canon 6d, I shot 7 consecutive images and stacked them in photoshop to reduce noise. Settings for each of the seven shots, 85mm, f2, 120sec, iso800, with post processing in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Above the Lagoon and Trifid Nebula, again a rough polar alignment. This was taken using a very modest aps-c kit the Sony a6500 and Samyang 85mm f1.8 ED UMC CS as part of my lens review found here. I didn’t have a remote shutter release or intervelometer for the Sony a6500 so I simply set the camera in manual, settings 85mm, f1.8, 30seconds, iso2000 and pressed the shutter manually using the cameras 2 second timer for 8 consecutive images, I then again used photoshop to stack and post process the image. I think this image says a lot for what the Star Adventurer can bring to your night photography, cheap lens, aps-c camera, tripod and Star Adventurer, nothing too difficult involved with the rough polar alignment or post processing, apart from some star minimisation.

Above, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). This image was the result of really trying to nail down my polar alignment for not only practice so I can align consistently with minimum fuss, working out a system that works for me quickly every time but also to see how far I could personally push the Star Adventurer as a relative beginner, I managed to get exposures as long as 2minutes at a focal length of 160mm, I think most would be quite happy with that using the Star Adventurer. The image was shot at the following settings, 160mm, f2.8, 120seconds, iso1600 x 12 images, I then stacked these 12images in photoshop but did the majority of my post processing in Pixinsight. I used the following equipment, Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer, Canon EOS R, Canon 70-200 f2.8, Benro Mach 3 tripod and Hahnel Captur remote shutter release.

Conclusion

I personally love the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer and will hopefully be purchasing a Star Adventurer mini for review soon. I will also be buying a couple more of these mounts as I would like to incorporate these into my astrophotography workshops later in the year and into the future.

I think a lot are put off these mounts, scared of the process of polar alignment but I think the above images show that although precise polar alignment is very important for getting the absolute best results you can get quite good images with the Star Adventurer even if your alignment isn’t perfect.

The ease of use, ease of set up, small light form factor, portability and reasonably low price is amazing for those that want to explore tracked astro, either for accessible deep space objects, wide field tracked milky way or shooting composites and blends to create art. It really does open up a lot of opportunities for your night photography. If you have been thinking of exploring tracking mounts I highly recommend you take a look at the Star Adventurer.

If you found this review useful or interesting PLEASE feel free to SHARE on social media, your support goes along way with helping organise these reviews, tutorials and features. DON’T FORGET to also SUBSCRIBE to Nightscape Photographer using the pop up or the subscribe option in the side bar, this way you will be notified of new blogs, tutorials, tips, partner offers, any upcoming Nightscape photographer photo workshops and future subscriber give-aways. Thanks Daniel Gangur