Great review. How do you know which 3 stars to choose to do the proper alignment ? How do you know if it is aligned successfully after going through the process? I've been doing the 3 stars alignment but I can't seem to figure it out what am I doing wrong, after that it won't go to any of the correct stars/nebulas etc after I do the alignment. So I must do something wrong. (It is properly aligned to Polaris.)
Thanks again. I've shot many Pano over the years but never with a tracker. I have a shinny new tracker now and your advice is so helpful. I'm hoping to give it a try in about two weeks.
Hi John Thanks for all your content - absolutely love it. Learning so much. I'm an amateur photographer from Tassie and I'm planning my first tracked milky way panorama in a few weeks - looking to buy my first star tracker. I'm tossing up between the Mini and the Pro 2i, with budget being a bit of a concern. I'll be shooting on a Sigma 50mm 1.4 DG HSM with a Sony A7C, so payload shoould be okay for both. But I've heard the Mini struggles with timing out/failing on the app side, with disconnects/resets etc. Have you found this to be an issue? Just worried I'll get 10 photos in on a perfect night and stuff up the shot because the app failed on me! Any advice would be super useful. :) Thanks mate - keep up the great work!
Hi John, awesome video. First question, do you turn the tracker off each time you level for the next shot? Secondly, what clamp is that you use to secure the camera? Thanks
I did same gigantic 2,8 gigapixel panorama with sony 85mm at northern hemisphere total zigzag tracked 238 images stitched togheter, but got some problems. First comes PTGui (not Pro version) with huge lack of Control points (my overlap was 65%) i did manualy frame by frame, then PTGui got me a massive banding lines between frames and strange color casting between a vertical rows. Is ithis banding lines and color difference fixably only in PTGUI Pro or how you manage your backround so clean and without starnge banding? Thanks John
Great video Mate! Was wondering how to do Panos with a tracker like that! Was the foreground also a pano? Do you incorporate the foreground in the pano shooting process or just blend it separately in post?
Wow man. This is amazing. Could you please make a video on the workflow for stitching and editing the panorama? This would help a lot of beginners like me. For eg. Did you adjust the white balance, contrast on each photo and then stitched them or you did the whole colour balance after stitching?
Hey, is there a way to take Milky Way time lapses using the GTi mount. It is disappoint that there is a dedicated time lapse move on the SA 2i but not SA GTi. :(
Hey, that's a beautiful video. I see that you are using a snap cable perhaps. Do you know what snap cable will work for Sony A7C (type c port). I don't seem to find any, and also people are saying that it doesn't work even if you find one.
what was the Bortle rating? I live near Newcastle, the Upon Tyne one, not the NSW one, I am 40-60 minutes from a 3-4 but due to weather shot at a 4-5 location and the difference was surprising. Hope to travel to Scottish Highlands in the autumn for Bortle 1
@@johnrutterphotography cheers, just back from a 4am Bortle 3 panorama on Northumberland coast. unfortunately the Newcastle light pollution was on the southern horizon exactly where the core was.
lol, stopped watching when he said 60-70 tracked images (four hours). I'm lucky here in the north of England if I can get the core for 20 minutes cloud free at 0400hrs
Its not a great product. I've had mine since release and never got the Southern Hemisphere phone mount. Made my own, which msm don't like because it's way cheaper than their inaccurate one.
Hi John, a question for you, Do you run SkySafari 7 Pro or simular on your phone, and is your phone Android? The reason I am asking is that in the video, you slewed your mount to a target, if you used SkySafari to do that I would love to know how you set your phone up to do that. I have SkySafari 7 Pro on my Android phone and I can't get it to slew my mount I have tried all sorts of settings and nothing is working. Cheers Robert Vict'
@@johnrutterphotography Thanks for that, I have seen others use SkySafari and are able to slew their mounts with it. I suppose I have Stellarium on my phone as well and that works.
Excellent video and awesome results on the Milky Way.............have you tried this plugin on nebula photos such as the Seagull, or Flaming Star? Would like a better feel for how it would work with something like that as it seems to be a much better work flow before purchasing.
Excellent video, thanks for such a clear explanation. I already have a V bracket, do you think I can combine V + Z or would you believe Z + Z is better?
Hi John! What images stacking software you are using on your Mac? I have tested this well-known StarryLandscapeStacker myself for some time, but its really seems to me that this software no longer adds any details to the final stack in the case if put more than something 30+ tracked photos into process. So I think max 1h ins enough for this soft and extra exposure time will not make result any better. I am looking some alternatives. Thanks!
Thanks for all your feedback. Very interesting. May i ask if you had a chance to try the Tamron 35 f1.4? Based on différent MTF database, this lense seats between Sigma 35 and sigma 40mm in term of sharpness. I have the Tamron (from when i was doing some portraits) I'll try it this week if weather forecast is good. But i wanted to have your opinion on it, if you tried it, to know if it worth to move to the sigma 40mm for the extra accuracy. Many thanks in advance.
Hey mate, I have not tried that lens, the biggest thing to look for is corner sharpness, most lenses these days are pretty similar in the centre but the true test is moving out from there especially at wide apatures
I use the pro version as it can help with the masking feature but I used the standard version for a long time with great success, so if money is no option go the pro version
That's a great set up John. I'm leaning towards a Star Adventurer GTI as well. Using a single a73 & a 40mm art lens. Just curious - what specific move & shoot sequence worked best for you using this mount?
While using the gti I still put a ballhead and pano head on it as I would my standard star adventurer, so you can do any sequence you wish. The order in which I shoot totally depends on what I'm shooting and in what direction.
Thanks mate. Haha 70 Is excessive and when people do them and move back to a wide angle lens for a 10-20 image pano they don't see much of a difference
I want to start out at wider focal lengths (24-200) and get some experience before learning all I need to know to do deeper space imaging. I’ve seen one review that talked about it he difficulty of balancing a light setup in this mount. Should I be concerned? Should I start out with the original star tracker? Thanks for this helpful video.
I would just use the gti. It is hard to balance light payloads but if your payload is so light that you can't balance it then just leave it un balanced, you won't have any issues with it, I've done this many times
@@johnrutterphotography - that also means that if I grow into more deep-space targets using asiair and/or guide scopes, this could grow with me. I like this idea.
Would you recommend doing a 4-5 shot pano with a 20mm or 24mm of the sky and then switching lenses to do another 4 shot pano of the ground with a 14mm, and then combining both those panoramas? Or would that be too complicated to do?
You can definitely do that, I have done that before to speed up the time it takes to do the foreground, you will just have ro get the scale right in photoshop so they match back up
Great Video John , very helpful . I just stared doing tracked Panorama. I have a old Canon 6D Ha with the MSM Tracker. I'm looking forward better 50mm prime to update my Canon nifty fifty 50mm f1.8. I noticed you have Samyang prime 50mm and 85mm. How to you like thoses lenses? In regards to Samyang/Rokinon lens I do have the 20mm f1.8 and 14mm f2.4 sp and they have worked very well for me so far. Would you still recommend the Samyang 50mm and 85mm primes or do you have any other suggestions for Astrophotography? Thanks again for content, it really helps out alot. Kind regards Sean
Samyang are a great budget choice, they are not great wide open at 1.4 but stopped down to 2.8 they are good. If you want absolute quality then you get what you pay for, sigma ART series are absolutely fantastic lenses and are what I'm using now
@@johnrutterphotography Thank You John for the Reply. I do have the Sigma 14-24mm f2.8 and 35MM 1.4 which are incredibly amazing. I just picked up the Rokinon 50mm f1.4 and 85mm F1.4 from B&H Photo. The price was 2 good to walk away from. For these cheap lenses I plan on using them on a star Tracker at F2.8 for Sky photos. I was thinking about the Sigma 50 and 85 but your video gave me a idea of going the economy route for now. Up here in Canad thoses Sigma lenses new are about $1000 each. The Misses would make life very difficult for me if those lenses showed up on the bank statements. Lol
Hey John, great video mate. I recently grabbed a HA filter for DSO’s and have planned to do some wide field stuff before Orion sets. Your vid on how to bring it all together has inspired me, thanks mate 🍻
Thank you so much for teaching the in detailed work flow. As a beginner I have checked hundreds of post-processing video, some how today this video came up in suggestion and I got an advance way to edit my milky way images. You a got a new subscribers. Love from India. Clear Skies!
Couldn't you just create a mosaic to be your panorama, and have it all controlled by NINA framing assistant or ASIAIR etc. That way its all automatic, just like doing deep sky?
The issue you run into is plate solving such a wide field of view, I've found anything wider than 85mm won't plate solve so it can't be done like deep sky
