Spent $800 on a star tracker and it's the best money I ever wasted

Bought a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer 2i last year, thinking it would fix my blurry deep space shots. It did, but only after I spent three whole nights in my backyard just trying to get the polar alignment right. Now my Orion Nebula photos are sharp, but I still feel like I paid for a fancy lesson in frustration. Anyone have a simpler setup they actually like?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray3632mo ago

Thought it was overkill, but the results won me over.

anna_ross192mo ago

Three whole nights just to get it to work? How did you not throw the whole thing in the trash? I get what @ray363 means about the results, but that setup sounds like a part-time job.

the_thomas2mo ago

Three nights is wild. I would have lost my mind after the first hour. I guess if the final product is that good, like @ray363 said, maybe it's worth the pain. But still, I can't imagine spending my whole evening for three days straight just to make one thing work. That's more effort than I put into most of my hobbies.