Help Please set up Sky Tracker- Star Adventurer

Hi, I am trying to set up a new Sky Watcher to my 7D2. I have the tracker hooked up to the camera via a auxiliary shutter release cable that came with the set up. Everything is on, I am
polar aligned, pointing at the stars, and nothing. Well, not nothing but my 7D2 will not open the shutter. A. I believe its because there is not enough light. B. I don't have a control on my camera in the correct
position. The manual for the sky watcher does not cover the camera settings. Can someone help me? This is what a have so far. My camera is on B for bulb. Aperture is wide open . My lens is 28mm-70mm.
Lens is manual focus but auto focus light is blinking. Maybe the drive is set wrong? Any advice? Thanks so much.

Hi Sheron,

It won't be due to lack of light... the shutter should fire regardless. Are you sure that the lens is set to manual focus? The autofocus light shouldn't be blinking. Did you manually focus using liveview first? If so the lens should be on manual focus, but I would double check this. B for bulb is correct. Is it the Star Adventurer or the Star Adventurer Mini? I have the latter (which uses a phone app to enter the camera settings etc), but I'm not familiar with how it is done with the original Star Adventurer.

Hope you get it up and running soon!

Cheers,
Stephen

S.R.M. wrote in post #18687258
Hi Sheron,

It won't be due to lack of light... the shutter should fire regardless. Are you sure that the lens is set to manual focus? The autofocus light shouldn't be blinking. Did you manually focus using liveview first? If so the lens should be on manual focus, but I would double check this. B for bulb is correct. Is it the Star Adventurer or the Star Adventurer Mini? I have the latter (which uses a phone app to enter the camera settings etc), but I'm not familiar with how it is done with the original Star Adventurer.

Hope you get it up and running soon!

Cheers,
Stephen

Hi Stephen,

I was positive that I had my lens on manual focus, but it was NOT. That would explain the blinking..... AUTOFOCUS! As for live-view, I have only used it once maybe twice so I don't feel very comfortable
using it. I would like to use it more but up till now I haven't really had a need to. I purchased the Star Adventurer photo pack. I have had it for over a month now, but it has been so cloudy I couldn't take it out.
I have gone over those instructions a million times waiting for skies to clear. So I couldn't understand why it wasn't working. The Sky-Advent provides a cable to connect your camera to the tracker's base called a shutter control cable. The manual doesn't provide any recommendations on what settings the camera should be. It only states that the Star Adventurer will control the shutter. I have been looking though the 7D's manual too, but I haven't come across any possible settings yet but I'm still looking. I'll try again this evening and see how everything goes. Thank you for answering so quickly.

BTW, Congratulations on your last eclipse photo. How exciting to be published. That makes two now, right? What an honor!! So, your wanting National Geographic to come to you instead of the other way around. Good plan.
Thank you,
Sheron

Glad to hear that you got it all working well Sheron! Did you get some good images?

And thanks again regarding the eclipse photo! (I've actually had about 30 images published over the last 10 -15 years, but it's still always nice to see them in print )

Cheers,
Stephen

S.R.M. wrote in post #18688133
Glad to hear that you got it all working well Sheron! Did you get some good images?

And thanks again regarding the eclipse photo! (I've actually had about 30 images published over the last 10 -15 years, but it's still always nice to see them in print )

Cheers,
Stephen

Stephan

I did get a few images although they really are not very good for a few reasons. One the moon was out but I wanted to get some photos anyway and I think I had my iso too high it was at 1600. My location
wasn't that great either, I was in my back yard because I'm too scared to go anywhere else in the middle of the night. But I was excited to get to try the star tracker out, so it's all good. I took 10 photos in all.
This is one of them.

So I tried again last night or I should say this morning. It had been cloudy all night. But about 4:45am the skies cleared and there was Orion. So I put my 200mm on my camera/tracker, quickly did
the polar alignment and this. Was the 200mm lens too much weight? I had the tracker on the star timer, the same as the night before. What did I do wrong? It looks like too much time, but I'm not sure.
You can just barely see some red gases which makes it worth the no sleep.

Canon cameras have a few focus modes including "One Shot", "AI Servo", and a hybrid mode called "AI Focus". By default, the camera uses "One Shot".

In "One Shot" mode, if the auto-focus is enabled on the lens, the camera uses "Focus Priority" -- which means it will not take the shot until the camera can lock focus on at least one focus point. In "AI Servo" mode the camera uses "Release Priority" and will take a shot when you trigger the shutter release ... even if the camera is not focused.

But for purposes of astrophotography, auto-focus isn't going to work anyway... use manual focus. If the AF/MF switch on the lens is in the MF position, the camera will take the shot.

As for camera control... you're likely be happier using an intervalometer to control the camera rather than using the Star Adventurer. I'm reading their docs. When you put it in "time lapse" mode, it simply starts a 100 second cycle where it activates the shutter for 99.5 seconds, and release for .5 seconds... then re-activates for another 99.5 secs, etc. etc. You can put the camera in "bulb" mode if you actually *want* 99.5 second exposures ... but if you want anything less, it needs to be based on the camera's increments (for non-bulb shots) such as 30 secs, 15 secs, etc. etc.

If you were to get an intervalometer, you can set it to anything you want.

Canon's own intervalometer for the 7D is the Canon TC80-N3 ... but it's $135. There are many 3rd party intervalometers that cost less than $50. Quality-wise... an intervalometer is a very simple thing. There are 3 wires in the remote shutter release port. 1 wire is the ground pin. That leaves two more wires... one wire indicates the shutter is "half" pressed. The other wire indicates the shutter is "fully" pressed. It really is as simple as that. So the time built into the shutter release is simply controlling the contact switch on those 3 wires.

You could also get the wi-fi card for the 7D II and control the camera with your phone or a tablet.

I have a 7D that I use exclusively for astrophotography. When I go out that is. It has been over a year. I run a magic lantern (ML) firmware instead of using a external intervalometer. No batteries to worry about, and ML lets me change the menu colours to red. I never did try to use the star adventurer to control the camera. And it's custom firmware seemed to cumbersome to setup.

Hopefully the OP has figured out her problems by now.