Equatorial Mounts For Budget Astrophotography?

Timoris writes "With the Perseids approaching rapidly, I am looking for a good beginner's motorized equatorial mount for astrophotography. I have seen a few for $150 to $200, but apparently the motor vibrations make for poor photographs. Orion makes good mounts, but are out of my price range ($350) and the motor is sold separately, adding to the price half over again. Does anyone have any good experience with any low- or mid-priced mounts?"

Comments

In that budget range just buy used commercial

[Isaac-1]

In that budget range, just buy a used commercial drive base from a broken small equatorial telescope like a Meade ETX-70 or ETX-90 that are typically sold in Wal-Mart at Chirstmas time. It is common to find them on ebay cheap with broken optical components. Another option is an old B&L 4000, the optics on most of these were junk, but they had a decent AC powered drive base, and since everyone knows the optics were junk, just ask google, they tend to sell cheap ($100 or so) on ebay.

Ike

For Meteors? Just a tripod

[pedestrian crossing]

To shoot a meteor shower, you need nothing more than a tripod, a camera with a ~50mm lens, warm clothes and patience.

You don't want to take real long exposures to get meteors, too long and light pollution/sky glow will likely mess up your pictures.

Just point near the radiant (I try for framing a nice constellation nearby), and using a cable release take 20-30 second exposures while watching the area of sky that the camera sees. Most exposures obviously won't have meteors, but when you do catch one, take note of which exposure for later when you delete the (many) exposures that didn't have a meteor. When you do capture a meteor, start a new exposure because keeping the shutter open longer won't likely gain you anything.

If you're looking at doing further astrophotography beyond a meteor shower, then you will need some form of tracking. Making a barn-door tracker can be a cheap option to get started (YMMV, depending on how good you are at making stuff and your level of patience!).

As with the rest of astronomy, you can start out spending a bunch of money on stuff you don't really need or use, so it's always good to start cheap and see if you are really into it. If your interest holds, you will find a way to buy up.