josso

<p>Thank you very much for all your comments. I will look again on photo.net and google to see if I can find out more about the Orion Min-EQ Tabletop Equatorial Telescope Mount.<br>

I am also considering to build my own barn door tracker as a second option but I don't have much time and I don't know if I can trust my poor skills to build an accurate tracker.<br>

The links you gave me are all very nice and interesting!</p>

<p>Thank you again,<br>

Nico</p>

<p>Thank you for the reply JDM. Yes I am aware my lenses are "very wide angle" for this application and will give me "landscape" of the cosmic wonders.<br>

I already tried some star trails with many 30 s to 1 min exposure for one hour. It looks good and I like it but I would like to go further and be able to see some Messier objects.</p>

<p>Hi everybody,<br>

I am more and more interested in astrophotography and I am thinking of buying an equatorial mount to take long exposure of cosmic wonders. I have a Canon 400D with a 18-55mm and a 70-300mm lenses. My tripod is the Hakuba HG-504MX carbon fiber tripod that can support 25lbs.<br>

Basically I would like to begin astrophotography and try to take long exposure with the 18-55mm and if possible my 70-300mm so I think I am looking for a cheap motorized equatorial mount that could fit my tripod.. Is it possible?<br>

While searching on the web I found a cheap solution that could work and I would like to know if anyone here tried it. The mount is the $60 Orion Min-EQ Tabletop Equatorial Telescope Mount (<a href="http://www.telescope.com/control/product/~category_id=mounts_and_tripods/~pcategory=accessories/~product_id=09055">http://www.telescope.com/control/product/~category_id=mounts_and_tripods/~pcategory=accessories/~product_id=09055</a> ) that can apparently fit on a regular tripod. From what I have read, I can then add the $45 <a href="http://www.telescope.com/control/product/%7Ecategory_id=drives_controllers/%7Eproduct_id=07812" >Orion AstroTrack Drive for EQ-1 Telescope Mount </a> to motorize it. This solution appears to be very cheap and tempting to begin with but I don't know if it really works as advertised..</p>

<p>Thank you in advance,<br>

Nico</p>