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

Works well, though the SynScan app can be problematic upon occasion. When it is working, my goto’s were very good. I do astrophotography and use this with a guide scope/camera, through EQMOD and that works well. Some nights my total error is about 1.2-1.7 which isn’t great if you have a camera with very small pixel pitch. For mine not an issue. Other nights I can get about 0.6-0.8 total error. Goto’s with Stellarium and EQMOD work very nicely. And with no guide, good polar alignment I could get up to 2 min subs with a 200mm lens.

Works very well. I quickly out grew the weight limit on it though. It now is a secondary mount for smaller rig.

The Sky Watcher Star Adventurer GTi has greatly simplified my astrophotography setup and made the hobby more enjoyable. I am currently using it for both planetary and deep sky, and with proper polar alignment I can do 60 second subs with no guiding without issue. For a beginner astrophotographer this is the way to go. With the app, you can do polar alignment and a 1-star alignment in around 5 minutes, which is great for nights where you may be under a time crunch due to weather.

This purchase was a huge bummer. I bought this in hopes of taking to a star party as my first astro trip. It was listed as "like new open box" via Amazon. When it arrived everything looked okay until I looked a bit more closely: 1) The polar scope eyepiece was extremely loose and wiggly. 2) The polar scope illuminator would not light 3) The housing had defects including missing paint 4) The dovetail mount was out of alignment with the polar scope. Since I don't really know anything about astro yet, I opted to reach out to Sky Watcher for support. They told me none of those things were normal and to return the item to Amazon. So back it goes. Hopefully I will still be able to get some decent wide photos at the star party. Other than the defects, the unit did connect to the app and move, but without being able to polar align, the accuracy and function was severely affected. I will likely buy this unit from an approved dealer. Honestly, the open box discount wasn't even big enough to justify the headache.

I have been using the SA GTi for about a month now and have been very satisfied. Its go to capability is a huge advantage over the SA 2i, since it saves time when locating the astronomical objects that you want to photograph or observe, but it also feels more robust, the knobs for polar alignment are better and allow adjustment easier and more precise. It is very easy to install and connect. The tracking is very precise and using guidance, I have been able to take 3 minute exposures with a 560mm telescope with an average error of less than 1 arc second.

When I shot the recent Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS with my Fujifilm X-H1 on a geared-head tripod, using 0.5 second exposure, background star motion was visible in closeup. Later, I calculated that the stars had moved 6 pixels during that 0.5 second. The photos were still great, but this experience got me excited about an EQ clock drive. Research led me to this SA GTi -- good specifications, good reviews, and still relatively affordable. The 11-pound weight limit is the primary characteristic of the GTi. This is fine for modern cameras and "astrographs", small refractors designed 100% for astrophotography. I will update the review as I gain experience and results with the mount. The reason for only four-stars in my rating is that the polarscope LED is nonfunctional in the GTi that I received. I tried all the posted workarounds and even the alternate Windows package GS Server but no luck. I decided not to return the GTi but might at a later date seek a warranty repair. The reason is that traditional precise polar alignment is not that important for a "Go To" mount like this. Instead, after a basic polar alignment, two- or three-star alignment and synchronization are used to calibrate the internal computer for precise pointing and tracking.

Very complicated to get it to align properly. I only got the go to function to work once. WAY TOO MANY HOURS watching tutorials just to have it never work consistently. VERY frustrating.

I set this up with a Redcat51, a ZWO asi294 pro, asi120 guide camera controlled with an ASIAir. The first night I did the polar alignment using the ASIAir then slewed it to the North America nebula where I did my final focusing and did a few test images of about 1 minute each to make sure I had it framed how I wanted it. Well I set up a run of 10 pictures 3 minutes each but guiding failed during the first image, I didn’t set it up correctly so I just let it take the images anyway. Well I thought I was taking 3 minute integrations but I had checked 300 seconds and that is 5 minute integrations not 3 like I thought I was taking. To my surprise the images came out perfect totally round stars no trailing with no guiding. This mound tracks like a dream better than my LX200 but then again it’s had a much smaller focal length. The next day I setup again and 5 minute tracking was spot on both guiding and not guiding. I slewed to several targets that night and it hits its target almost dead on every time. This will be my camping setup nice and compact.

This is my first Star Tracker equatorial mount. And was a much awaited and anticipated purchase. I did not expect such a reputed company to outsource production to CHINA. The Battery cover is made of cheap plastic and very poorly designed. My tracker did not turn on while using 8 AA batteries, after a lot of trials I discovered that it would turn on if I pressed down on the battery cover, in spite of the screw being fully tightened. There seems to be some loose contact, in the battery compartment. I could only make it work after tying down the battery compartment using a bungee cord strap. The battery compartment cover is held down by three small plastic pegs on one end and the screw on the other end. On close inspection one of the plastic pegs was broken. I felt it wasn’t worth paying for the shipping, to send this back to the company for a replacement. The design could be improved if the battery compartment cover is held down using 2 screws at both ends, instead of the small plastic pegs. Looks like the bungee chord strap is going to be part of my rig. While using fully charged 8AA Panasonic Eneloop batteries, the red light kept flashing, probably indicating Low voltage. (Each Eneloop Battery is only 1.2V giving a total voltage of only 9.6V.) But Despite this, Once it turned on everything seemed to work well as expected, waiting for clear skies to test it out in the field. The SynScan Pro App works perfectly and had no problems connecting my Android phone via WIFI

El Sky Watcher Star Adventurer GTI es un muy buen producto para astrofotografía básica. Puede soportar muy bien el peso de un Celestron C5 spotting scope junto con una cámara Nikon D3100 y su anillo T adaptador (T-Ring Adapter). Logre tomar una muy buena imagen de la Nebulosa de Orión con seguimiento y tiempo de exposición de 30 segundos (27 imágenes apiladas). En las pruebas que realice es posible tomar fotografías de hasta 1 minuto de exposición, sin guiado; obteniéndose estrellas aceptablemente puntuales. Es importante aclarar que la versión que compre venia SIN TRIPODE tal y como lo mencionaba la descripción en su momento (revisar antes de comprar). Al respecto del tripode es importante que este sea robusto y que pueda soportar el peso del Sky-Watcher, Telescopio y aditamentos juntos; adicional a esto hay que tomar en cuenta que el SkyWatcher viene con rosca para TORNILLO DE SUJECION DE 3/8 - 16. Algunos trípodes utilizan tornillos de sujeción diferentes por lo que es muy importante verificar que tornillo de sujeción tiene el trípode que pretendes usar con el skywatcher. Si no fuera compatible, será necesario que adquieras un adaptador para la rosca de tu trípode. La función Go-To es funcional mas no muy precisa, pero no tendrás problemas para encuadrar tu objetivo de forma manual ya que no se desvía demasiado. En general estoy satisfecho con el producto.

Vale la pena si sabes de estas cosas. Sobre todo fácil de llevar y armar.

Muy buena calidad

Funciona perfecto