First outing with the iOptron

My uncle bought a SkyTracker recently and loaned it to me for my trip to CO and dark sky country.


I have never used any sort of a tracker, so when my brother and I grabbed our 6Ds
and a few lenses we really had no idea what we were doing.

We set up south of Paonia last night and I followed the directions.
Got a few decent wide field shots in and then went all out:

100mm f/2.8L at f/4
ISO 3200
180 second exposure

Not sure what region of the Milky Way this is or what the purple objects are,
so positive IDs, C&C always appreciated!

I am extremely impressed with the Skytracker, and if a noob like me can make it work, I think almost anyone can!

Beautiful image. It's exceptional for your first image.

Beautiful! You have a natural talent for astrophotography. I'd be interested to see your wider stuff ߑ

rogue.guineapig wrote in post #17673252
My uncle bought a SkyTracker recently and loaned it to me for my trip to CO and dark sky country.


I have never used any sort of a tracker, so when my brother and I grabbed our 6Ds
and a few lenses we really had no idea what we were doing.

We set up south of Paonia last night and I followed the directions.
Got a few decent wide field shots in and then went all out:

100mm f/2.8L at f/4
ISO 3200
180 second exposure

Not sure what region of the Milky Way this is or what the purple objects are,
so positive IDs, C&C always appreciated!

I am extremely impressed with the Skytracker, and if a noob like me can make it work, I think almost anyone can!

Excellent capture for your first time use and following directions . Seems you did very well ! What you have captured is the lower part of the Southern Milkyway . On the right side that is the Pipe nebulae , the purplish object is M8 - Lagoon Nebulae and right above it is a red and blue nebulae M20 , the Trifid Nebulae and M21 an open star cluster just above M21 : http://apod.nasa.gov/a​pod/ap150810.html . Now if you look almost in the center at the very top of your image you can see M23 , another beautiful open star cluster . Check out this image of the Milkyway and move your mouse over the picture and arrows will point out each object in the Milkyway : http://apod.nasa.gov/a​pod/ap100831.html . M23 can be seen in a large size binocs but a telescope really brings it in close for a beautiful star scene !

Oh wow. That's an excellent shot!

cool stuff...mine's been collecting dust, i need to get to some dark skies and give it another go

thanks guys!

I feel like it was beginners luck...the weather has gone to crap with smoke and haze moving in this week and making life difficult.
Even so...I'm just thrilled with the results!
Celestron thanks for the ID and link!! That helped a lot...now to shoot the lagoon!

I'll see about finishing up my edit on the wide shot from that night...it won't be as stunning but it may be ok.

thanks so much...you all have inspired me for years with your posts and now I finally got a chance to do some
shooting with the tracker! It's addictive already.

rogue.guineapig wrote in post #17675934
thanks guys!

I feel like it was beginners luck...the weather has gone to crap with smoke and haze moving in this week and making life difficult.
Even so...I'm just thrilled with the results!
Celestron thanks for the ID and link!! That helped a lot...now to shoot the lagoon!

I'll see about finishing up my edit on the wide shot from that night...it won't be as stunning but it may be ok.

thanks so much...you all have inspired me for years with your posts and now I finally got a chance to do some
shooting with the tracker! It's addictive already.

"It's addictive already", soon leads to "sleep is over-rated"

Fantastic capture!

My iOptron has stopped rotating. It turns on and I can hear it. But no more rotation. I'm not sure what's wrong with it. I've had it over a year or more, maybe 2~3 years now? I'll have to open it up I guess and see what's up. Would love to hear from anyone else using the iOptron if they know what it could be!

Very best,

Beautiful widefield shot!

Seems you need to start a new thread but my half penny opinion:
Whenever this happens to me, is just prior to batteries going dead (Weak rechargeable batteries) but I assume you have excluded that and have changed the entire battery back with a new one. Your next bet is the probability of one of your wheels, missing the contact or something on that line. Seems iOptron has a good customer service and they do care to help consumers even when warranty is over. I would try them if a simple solution can not be found after opening it to see the internal mechanism.
Well best of luck or may be its time to try something slightly larger (If repair is too costly) s.a. Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Mount.

Awesome photo!

Seeing results like this really makes me want to go out and buy one right this moment!

was it hard to configure and set rotation speed?

I set the rotation to 1X and I guess it was right...because I got lucky!

The config is easy, but getting it aligned right can be so very, very tricky.
What I REALLY want for it is a tripod mount/head that has fine adjustment controls to really dial it in.
Also though, I noticed that it was obviously easy to get great results at 16mm, close at 100mm,
and pretty tricky at 250mm on a crop-sensor.

Beautiful image. Great work.

That little iOptron is a great addition for anyone wanting to do night photography. Great job for your first time use!