Bresser StarTracker
Astronomical Photo Mount Kit
A portable mount and accessories package for wide-field astrophotography
ith most astronomy mount manufacturers now offering a portable star tracker option, Bresser’s new StarTracker Astronomical Photo Mount Kit joins a busy field. The kit includes a StarTracker Astronomical Photo Mount PM-100, a TP-100 DX tripod, an equatorial wedge, a ball head and a polarscope. If you don’t need the full kit – for example, if you already own a good tripod,
– the PM-100 mount can be bought separately, but we would definitely recommend the polarscope for alignment purposes. With a weight capacity of 2kg in equatorial mode and a total weight, including tripod and accessories, of just 3.6kg, this mount is aimed at the wide-field photography market and would not be stable enough to take the weight of a small telescope. The photo mount head itself is just 8.6cm x 8.6cm and can fit into a coat pocket for easy transport.
WGetting set up
The kit arrived as separate parts, so a small amount of initial assembly was required, but nothing that required any tools, so it only took a few minutes. Instructions were included for each individual part, but the main manual also covers the entire setting up process. The instructions are very thorough and give suggested camera settings for both astrophotography use and time-lapse mode in enough detail to get even a beginner up and running in no time; we were ready to go within five minutes.
We had some initial concerns around the extendable centre column of the tripod – these can sometimes rotate unexpectedly while adjusting a camera and can throw off polar alignment – but the column tightened well and everything felt very solid. Even with the tripod legs extended to their maximum the whole setup felt stable.
Bresser gives approximate maximum exposure lengths in the manual, which covers lenses from 15mm to 100mm, but these will be dependent on polar alignment accuracy. For this review we used a 14mm f/2.8 lens and a 50mm f/2.8 lens, weighing