Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi Overview
The Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi is a new portable equatorial mount that is excellent for wide field astrophotography for all skill levels. Featuring an 11-lb (5kg) payload capacity, the Star Adventurer GTi can carry most light payloads with ease, including telephoto lenses and shorter focal length telescopes. Between its portability, feature list, and affordability, the Star Adventurer GTi is the perfect mount for beginners to get started in astrophotography with.
The Best Portable GoTo Telescope Mount
The Star Adventurer GTi is designed for portability, with the mount head weighing just 5.7 lbs (2.6 kg) and the included counterweight system (counterweight + shaft) weighing 6.3 lbs (2.9 kg). In addition to DC 12v power, the Star Adventurer GTi can run on 8x AA batteries, meaning you can easily power it in the field and leave a clunky power brick behind. The counterweight shaft is removable for compact storage and travel, so you can easily fit the Star Adventurer GTi in your luggage bag for flying. Speaking of travel, the latitude range on the Star Adventurer GTi is 0-70 degrees, meaning you can operate it almost anywhere in the world — including near the equator.
Combining the Best Features from the Star Adventurer Pro & AZ-GTi
Building on the success of the wildly popular Star Adventurer Pro and the AZ-GTi, Sky-Watcher has combined the best of both worlds into one mount: the Star Adventurer GTi. The Star Adventurer Pro is a portable star tracker trusted by astrophotographers, but it can only track and guide in one axis (right ascension) and lacks GoTo functionality. This is fine for most DSLR/mirrorless astrophotography, but tracking performance suffers when using longer focal length telescopes or lenses.
Some crafty imagers then took the Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi, which is primarily designed for visual use, and added an equatorial wedge and counterweights to make it a GoTo equatorial mount for imaging, but this wasn't a perfect solution. Now, Sky-Watcher has listened to its community's requests and created a GoTo star tracker/equatorial mount that combines the best features from both the Star Adventurer Pro and the AZ-GTi, hence its new name. The new Star Adventurer GTi has tracking in both axes, autoguiding, and GoTo ability while remaining portable enough to take with you when you travel — all of the bells & whistles that the modern astrophotographer needs. In essence, this mount is the perfect mount for beginners just getting started in the hobby of astrophotography or advanced imagers looking for a portable mount that can do it all.
Wireless GoTo Control From Your Phone, Tablet, or Computer
The Star Adventurer GTi can be controlled in a multitude of ways. You can choose to control it wirelessly with the SynScan Pro App available for Android, iOS, or PC. Additionally, if you prefer a classic hand controller, it can be operated on the SynScan hand controller (sold separately). OPTeam Note: We expect that since this mount features hand controller and USB ports, it will be ASCOM & INDI compatible for use with your favorite PC/Mac astronomy software.
Star Adventurer GTi Additional Features
The Star Adventurer GTi features GoTo ability, meaning you tell it where to point, and it will automatically slew your telescope to where you want it to go — a feature not usually seen on mounts in this class. Included as standard is an ST-4 autoguiding port, which lets you connect a guide camera (attached to a guide scope or off-axis guider) for more accurate mount tracking performance. Unlike the Star Adventurer Pro, the Star Adventurer GTi guides in both right ascension and declination axes which allows you to use even longer focal length telephoto lenses and telescopes. It also features an illuminated polar scope, which makes polar alignment at night a snap. It has a standard 3/8" tripod thread, meaning you can attach it to basically any photo tripod including the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Tripod or the Radian Carbon Fiber Tripod for a rock solid imaging platform.
Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi Full Specifications
- Payload capacity: 11 lbs (5kg)
- Operating mode: Equatorial (EQ)
- Tracking: Dual Axes (Right Ascension & Declination) with GoTo
- Latitude Range: 0 to 70 degrees
- Polar scope: Built-in polar scope with illuminator
- Controlled via: Integrated WiFi controllable with SynScan Pro app (Android, iOS, PC), USB, or optional SynScan hand controller
- Ports: DC 12v power input, USB Type A, Autoguider ST-4, SynScan Hand-controller, and Snap DSLR shutter release
- ST-4 type Autoguider Interface: Supports 0.25x, 0.5x, 0.75x 1x guiding rate
- Tracking Rates: Sidereal, Lunar, Solar
- Resolution: 0.35" in RA, 0.44" in Dec
- Worm gear: 180 teeth in RA, 144 teeth in DEC
- Tripod attachment: 3/8" mounting thread
- Power: 12V DC or 8x AA batteries
- Mount Head weight: 5.7 lbs (2.6 kg)
- Counterweight: 5 lbs (2.3 kg), one included, can accept up to two
- Counterweight shaft: 1.3 lbs (0.6 kg), dual-tilt, removable
