The mount is one of the most important pieces when doing astrophotography. Without a good mount it is impossible to achieve the tracking accuracy necessary to obtain high quality images. I am using the Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro equatorial mount which is a heavy piece of equipment, but it has certainly lived up to my expectations.
Descriptions are found by the pictures.
Skywatcher EQ6-R Equatorial Mount
The mount is driven by 12V DC from either a power tank as shown here or from an 80Ah 12V ordinary car battery. The mount comes with built in GoTo-software for 40 000 objects, but I am instead using a PC and a sequencing program with plate solve capabilities to locate the objects I want to photograph.
Skywatcher EQ6-R Equatorial Mount
The mount carries scopes up to 15 kg without problems when doing astrophotography. The mount is very sturdy and can be equippred with 1 – 3 counterweights, depending on the weight of the telescope and camera in use. Using autoguiding I achieve less than 1 arcsecond of tracking error during 5 minute long exposures.
Skywatcher 12V Battery
I am using either this 12 V, 17Ah powertank from Skywatcher or an ordinary 12V, 80Ah car battery to power the mount and the cameras.