It's great to see you back out again. Those are great images! Good to know about the possible panning feature on the next model. I wasn't rushing out to buy the GTI anyway, but I'll definitely hold off to see if that happens.
Great to see a new video after a while :D. So much progress in the last few years for astro in terms of software and hardware. Benro Polaris really changed stuff for automated astro panoramas and it would be great to see the GTI with that option too, which could come handy for really tight focal lengths.
Great presentation. BTW, very nice images. I felt I was right there with you imaging. I have no idea how to polar align below the Equator, so i was particularly impressed that the GTi does it auto. Great feature. Its definetely a TRAVEL rig. Thanks for posting. Kind regards!
Great review John. It looks like a ripper mount but obviously very suitable for the longer focal lengths. Good to see you out there again mate. Take care.
@@johnrutterphotography the manual says to remember to turn off the Illuminator once polar alignment has been set. For the life of me, I can not figure out how to do that? Could you “enlighten” me? Lol!
Thanks for the review John, as the next step in my astro journey this bit of kit could be the go. Like you I will have credit card in hand running to my significant other. Also, thank you for the tutorial on the StarXterminator, now part of my amateurish workflow.
Good video and review mate, as a ioptron user with ipolar I find it quite easy to align, though love the go to features that are starting to emerge in the gear like the GTI and also the new Benro Polaris, will be keen to see how the GTI goes if and when the updates come for tracked Panoramas and how they will all compare, both price and features. Well done and thanks as always.
I’ve recently purchased this late last year, and never used it yet as I’m working down in Antarctica until November. Next few nights I’ll get out and have a go at learning it.
I'm just starting out on my Astro-Photo journey and I'm researching the kit I need to buy, so this is a great video. I haven't bought anything yet but this will be the cornerstone of my system. I want to do wide angle panoramic single shots, and deep field multi exposures, and this seems to cover all bases. The easy polar alignment and GoTo features will be great for me. My daughter is studying Astrophysics as part of her degree so its going to be a father & daughter thing. I'll provide all the kit and she'll bring the coffee lol.
Awesome video John, thanks for the review. I almost got one of these but portability was just not there for me. Would love to see what you think of the Benro Polaris once you can get your hands on one.
It's definitely not a super portable mount, but I think it's the smallest GOTO equatorial mount on the market. I'd love to see the polaris if I can ever get my hands on one
Would definitely buy one if the automated mosaic feature was added. Currently using the ASIAIR PRO with my old AZ-GTI to create mosaics. Excellent video as, always 🔭🔭🔭
Great review, John. The mentioned multi-row panorama with that kind of tracker won't be possible since you need a third axis to accomplish that. Even if it's go-to, the camera position would be all over the place (rotational-wise)
I understand what you mean, but from the panos I've done in the past, the images can be all kinds of orientations and still stitch ok, it's definitely something I look forward to testing our
Thanks John for the review of the GTi mount. The alignment process seems dead easy and the Go To feature even better. It seems to me that this mount is very good for deep sky objects but not as useful for tracked panoramas as the original unit. You mentioned an update of the GTi which may come in the future. What do you understand that it will offer over the current GTi mount? It is always helpful to have an honest review. Thanks mate 😁👍
It will do tracked panos exactly the same as the original, although it's a bit like doing your daily commute in a Ferrari ( still can do the basics but u wouldn't use all its features) the update is rumoured to allow for automated tracked panos, because the mount is GOTO it would just be an update to the app toballow this to happen.
Hey @John Rutter, thank you for taking the time to share all your great videos, they really are both inspiring and helpful. I just started my Astro Photography journey last year, with single shot wide angle nightscapes (Nikon Z5 + Laowa 15mm f/2). I'm now keen to progress onto tracked panorama’s and have been struggling with choosing between Skywatcher Star Aventurer 2i and the GTi. The GTi looks like the way to go if I just had one tracker? It also appears to me, to have better deep sky options? And the Goto capability is to die for. I’d be interested to hear more about why you would still choose your Star Aventurer over the GTi for some shooting? And any more info on automated panoramas with the GTi would be great, as I’m also considering the Benro Polaris Astro, but this is rather expensive and the software/firmware still need more work. The Polaris does also offer me a lot of non astro options too, so I’m getting pulled in this direction. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Great review-I just bought mine and having trouble with alignment. When I turn the azimuth dials, it seems like nothing happens. They just seem like they’re screwing in and out. Did you run into this?
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.)
Great review John. Certainly spoilt for choice these days, but your review seems to have backed up my impression. Not really a 2i replacement, and not a direct competitor to the 10kg+ payload mounts. Great option for the scenarios you point out. I don't think I'll be parting with my money for a star tracker again until there is something like the iOptron SkyGuider Pro with iPolar that can be used with a phone app for alignment (and preferably tracking RA).
Hey mate, As a complete noob im probably going to get the GTI as its only like $200 more then the 2i, i muck around with a Nexstar 4se and its great until i try use my camera with it it stops being able to track so with permission from the Minister of Fun and Finance ive been aloud to start looking around on where i will get it from but its always nice to check out how it works from experts
Hi just stumbled across your video on the SW GTi. I have been looking at a lot of videos on the SW 's Star Adventure mounts. I already have the EQ6-R pro for my astro photography but I am looking for a light weight mount for my Colanardo PST40 Solar Scope, one that I can set up on the spot with out having to lug a big heavy mount around. From your review I think I know which way I will be going. Did you find any issues with the adjustment screws? the reason I ask is that there was one review where the adjustment screws were loose and he wrapped thread tape around then to firm then up. Is that a USB2 port on the top? if so wouldn't you with todays technology SW could have provided USB3 for faster transfer of files. I am in the Southern Hemisphere as well so it is good to get an Aussie point of view. Cheers Robert Vic'
Hey mate. I have had no issues at all with the mount, it pretty much lives permanently in the back of my car and everytime I get it out it just works the way it should.
Hi appreciate your video. I recently picked up a GTI and you said something that caught my attention. You said you did three start align and then made adjustments on the mount to get you polar aligned. So when you started 3 star align and it took you to the first star, what did you use to adjust the mount to center it in your camera scree? Was it the app or the knobs on the mount? Did you do that same procedure for each star? I'm struggling to understand how to align without looking through the polar align scope.
For the 3 star alignment I use the app to put the star in the centre, this tells the mount where it's looking, once that is completed go to polar align and choose a star to align on, use the app to centre it and then the mount will slew to one side (the distance your off polar alignment) then adjust the mount to get the star back to centre and your polar aligned
Great video, John! Subscribed. Question - how do you actually take your photos? With my big mount, i hook up to a laptop and use a combination of nina/stellarium to find my way around and setup sequences. Are you using an intervalometer? or something else?
so will the polar alignment of 3 stars work if there close together like Orion's Belt being in the south i would have to do my polar alignment with 4 stars instead of 1 Sigma Octantis Tau Octantis Upsilon Octantis Chi Octantis and most of those stars can not be seen by the naked eye and Orions belt for me is in the sky pretty much all year round
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Thanks for the great Work. One Question: can you update the old Adventurer without WIFi with Wifi? Or would you have to buy new? Thanks
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.
I have just received my GTi and am hoping that you're right about the mount getting the capability to do auto pannos as I am just trying to get into mosaics and that would be a great help.
Awesome stuff John. I'm guessing that with autoguiding it would do a much better job of pinpoint stars. I wonder what it's like without guiding compared to the star adventurer in terms of how long you can take photos without trailing?
Cheers Brendan, yes auto guiding will give you alot better results, and that it tracks both axis it will autoguide better than the 2i, as far as a tracking accuracy without guiding I can't see a big difference, although I think the periodic error seems a bit better on the gti.
@@johnrutterphotography any updates on the GTi since you made the video? Wondering if you've had a chance to use it more since then and finding it good.
john i just got my gti mount and was wondering, have you run the mount without the counter weight when doing panos? you have to keep the camera level the entire pano so it is never leaning over the side of the mount. the drive motor would be moving less overall weight trying to track without the counter weight in the verticle position.
Great video thank you! Just wondering, do you take/accept paid online tutorials at all? I have no astro club in my area, would like to do like a 1 hour tutorial online (paid) with someone to ask questions and just confirm stuff. I am deaf so i rely on audio translation and youtube can be hard at times
Hi Melanie, at this stage I don't do that but Richard from nightscape images does and he is an absolute wealth of knowledge, I highly recommend getting in touch with him
I'm not sure, but being that it's designed with all the same "bits" as it's big brothers, I'm sure it is totally controllable with what ever software runs your bigger rig
Thanks for video. We would be very happy, my friend, if you could make a video on how you process Milky Way photos at a suitable time. We wonder how it better reveals dark and light spots in Milky Way photos.
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.
Hi John, Could you help me with the polar align? I don't understand how do you do the polar align, i'm in the north hemisphere, Could you explain me, please 🙏?
I made my own adapter. I went down this road with the original SW SA (ASTROKRAKEN makes such stuff). I CAN SAY DEFINITELY, JUST GET an ASiair +, or mini !! You'll never look back. My POLEMASTER is in a drawer. It's painful, POLEMASTER is experience, and I was stubborn too. This mount once setup. 20 minutes from out the door to imaging. Used to take hours. Dedicated tripod and asiair, period. No I'm not affiliated. Combo is a dream. Especially in bortle 9, where star hopping is (as he says "borderline impossible"). You won't be sorry!
Hi! I just received one. How did you do a tracked panorama with the GTi? Does it do it automatically or you manually had to overlap and move the camera while the mount was still polar aligned and tracking? I could not see it clearly but did you have the camera set up on a system of ball heads/pano heads to manually be able to rotate it without having to move the mount? I’d love to see a video on how you shoot travled panoramas please. Thanks.
Very good video. I'm a beginner and I'd like to get this unit, the only problem is I don't own a cell phone. My question is can I operate the Sky-Watcher GTi using a SynScan V5 hand held controller (made by Orion). Thanks in advance.
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.
This is just Skywatchers equivalent to Ioptrons Smart EQ Pro +. Not sure if this Skywatcher has encoders in it like Ioptron's EQ Pro which i've had for sometime. All in all looks like a great mount, goodluck with it, as for me no need.
Hello, newbie here, just want to ask how to activate the star tracking on synscan app? Another thing is i dont hear the ticking noise and it seems its not moving also. I own the mini version and i can hear the ticking noise inside the tracker i know its running properly.
