To be mobile under the stars again I bought another SW Star Adventurer. I have already had one some years ago but sold it in a moment of insanity. The plan is to use my K3II and/or the ASI294mcp in the field with that cute little tool.

Nice.

Out of curiosity what can one reasonably expect for tracking at some focal lengths with one of these?

I don't think I would run my 300 or 400 (likely way too much weight and torque for it) on it but taking something like my 200/4 S-M-C Takumar, or short thigns like like an A 50/1.2, DA 35/2.8, Laowa 12mm are all candidates that I would consider running on one. I don't know if a 200mm would be asking too much of one or not.

Okay, Pete - what is that thing with the Pentax lens hanging off the side and (if it's a tracking camera), how did you mount the lens on it?

If you get the counterweight setup, you could handle a 200 no problem, probably a 300. 400 might be pushing it.
And like with a regular mount, tracking times depend on good alignment, but if you get that, then getting a couple minutes is reasonable.

I had used the SA with lenses from 14 mm (Skyskapes) to 400 mm for DSOs. It can carry about 4-5 kg load on a sturdy tripod with the counterweight. I had a lot of fun with the SA until I bought the 80/480 mm TS Photoline that was way too heavy for it.

All depends of the quality of the polar alignment and the individual period error in the RA axis of the mount. Short lenses can be used in the light-weight setup mode with a ballhead directly on the mounts axis. Exposure can be time up to several minutes then. Up to 200 mm I used the L-bracked fine tuning tool and the conterweight alone and all worked fine for 2-3 minute exposures or so if I remember it well. With a 400/5.6 I bought later the periodic error became obvious. I acquired an MGEN autoguider to solve this by guiding the RA axis. This worked excellent. Because of the remaining polar misalignment in DEC I was limited to 2 minutes or so with the long lens.

If you'd like to see an example of what the guided SA is capable of with a DSLR and a 135mm lens of in the right hands have a look at this guy: The Squid, the Elephant and the Bat. There are a lot of other great images caught with the SA in his gallery.

No Jonathan - this is an ASI294mcpro with an adaption for Pentax lenses. I already wrote a thread about this adaption here in the group but I don't find it now. ZWO has a short adaptor for the Canon mount and there are thin (1.5 mm) Canon/K-mount-adaptors on the market for a few dollars.

For very long exposures with 135mm or 200mm I will place a 50mm finder scope with the MGEN on the L-bracket. But my main goal is to image on holoiday trips (so rare!!!!) with a lightweight setup unguided with the Pentax K3ii for wide field Skyskapes or wide field DSOs with one of the ASI cams if I should be in a dark sky region some day.



With that adaption my ASI294 and 1600 can be used with pentax lenses and filters in a filter wheel. I had tested this last year and was quite happy with the results:

Veil Complex with the 200/4




Sadr Region with the 50mm 2.8 Macro:



Cygnus region with the 200/4



This was an old 200 mm Canon "Zebra" lens:

I believe your thread referred to this website. Forgive me if I am wrong. Cheers.

Astromechanics

Nope it was this thread: How to adapt Pentax lenses to ZWO ASI cameras - Astrophotography - PentaxForums.com. The links to the adapters and connections I use are in there....

Nice info there. I had seen these and thought they would be a general disappointment with anything other than a normal (50-ish) or wide lens but I guess I was wrong. With my 300mm setup I would probably be close to the upper limits of what it can do and anything I have that is bigger I would clearly be over that limit since the SMC A* 400/2.8 is an absolute monster and the MTO 1000/10 would show all the alignment and periodic errors it has. The sturdy tripod isn't a problem for me so this may end up being my first equatorial.

I guess it is time to spend some money and go shopping.

Just waiting for some clear skies for this ASI533MC Pro/DA*300 setup (I’ll have to set aperture by blocking the aperture pin)
My setup is not as portable as yours Peter, I’ll have to carry my Heq5 with me



Or with the Super Tak 200mm f4 M42 lens

Fantastic results Peter! Really like your setup

Thanks for that, I must have got the Astromechanics stuff from somewhere else. I'm old, and my memory is failing.