I took a few pictures of the most common objects and am using a Lumix G85 with a 100-300 (200-600mm eq.) lens. That is around 2.2lbs/1kg (Yes, that is a micro four thirds sensor) together with a Omegon Mount MiniTrack LX3 Essentials. It is a very cheap mount which you have to tention manually and it only runs for 1h at a time, polar alignment is hard due to the cheap “straw” you have to look through.
I really like this hobby and want to upgrade to a newer mount and the Sky-watcher Star Adventurer GTi looks really good for the price. However, I am worried about it’s max payload of just 11lbs/5kg. For me it is more than enough, but I want to know if it will be enough along the way if I upgrade to heavier camera or even a dedicated one with a proper telescope.
Can someone tell me about the Sky-watcher with a heavier load or pro-level gear on a different mount and how heavy it is and if you think this mount will be enouh for it.
generally as long as you aren’t pushing near the weight limit of your mount it should track fine for deep sky (personally, my imaging train weights 20 pounds, with a 30 pound class mount). You should be fine at 4kg, but might be pushing it if you decide to get autoguiding in the future
Auto guiding right now! Under 3” of error, though I don’t really know if that’s particularly good or bad. Pretty new at this!