Mounts
Visual observing forgives a mount that is near its limit; photography does not. An exposure records every vibration and every tracking error, which is why an imaging mount is chosen with far more margin than a visual one.
Everything above the mount counts: tube, camera, guide scope, focuser, cables. Then halve the number it is compared against.
A mount whose axis is a degree from the pole trails stars in a minute, however good its drive. A polar scope with an illuminated reticle is the usual way to get within a few arcminutes.
It is the specification that separates imaging mounts, and it appears in none of the listings here. Where a mount publishes nothing about its drive, this site prints that rather than assuming.
An equatorial mount tracks best balanced on both axes. Counterweights are the cheapest part of the system and the one most often left a little wrong.
Open-source tracker · ESP32-S dual core · 1/4 in output shaft
A small equatorial tracking head built on an open-source design and an ESP32-S dual-core controller, offering sidereal, lunar and custom rates from a USB-C power bank.
Best for: Wide-field camera tracking by somebody comfortable assembling their own chain of adapters
≈ €109
14 kg stated capacity · computerised GoTo · alignment without Polaris
A computerised German equatorial GoTo mount with a stated capacity of 14 kg and an alignment routine that does not require sight of Polaris.
Best for: Imaging from a site where the pole is behind a building
≈ $1099 / €1199
For EQ5, NEQ-5 and EQ-6 · both hemispheres
A polar scope screwing directly into the polar axis of named Sky-Watcher mounts, with a reticle usable in both hemispheres.
Best for: An EQ5, NEQ-5 or EQ-6 mount bought without its polar scope
≈ £49
1 kg · 80 mm diameter · 30 mm high · 14.7 mm bore
A 1 kg counterweight for the iEXOS-100, published with all three of its dimensions as well as its mass.
Best for: Fine-balancing an iEXOS-100 after adding a camera or a guide scope
≈ £31 / €31
50 mm aperture · 200 mm focal length · helical focuser
A 50/200 guide scope with a brass compression-ring helical focuser, 40 mm of travel including 10 mm of fine focus, supplied with tube rings and a Synta-style dovetail plate.
Best for: Guiding a main telescope of moderate focal length, and doubling as a wide finder
≈ $78 / £88 / €107
The common working rule is to load an imaging mount to about half its stated capacity. The rating describes what it will hold; it does not describe what it will track smoothly.
A repeating tracking error caused by the drive gear, appearing once per worm revolution. Almost no listing on this site publishes it, which is why it appears in the tables as not published rather than as zero.
For exposures beyond a couple of minutes, usually yes. It watches a star and corrects the mount continuously, which removes both periodic error and small polar alignment errors.
Any figure written into the body of this page was true on the day it was written. The amount shown next to each instrument is requested from the retailer as the page loads, and it is that amount, not the text, that stands.
Telescopes and mounts are discounted over and over through the year — hardest of all in the weeks before Christmas, which is exactly when most of them are bought — and a struck-through figure on its own says nothing whatever about what the same model was charged at four weeks ago. UniverTrack keeps a week-by-week record for each retailer, so a discount is measured against a figure somebody genuinely paid instead of one invented for the sale — and it says when the moment to buy has genuinely arrived.
