Any recommendations for a programmable panning head that can hold a heavy DSLR+lens mounted on the end of a nodal slide?
I was thinking of the Dr. Claus
Rodeon Pixpert as well, but the price might be outside the range you're considering.
There are also the
Roundshot units made by Seitz.
Much simpler solutions are the Gigapan units, but they are much more limited and fragile, and not suited for some camera form-factors.
There are several Kickstarter projects, but I'm not too sure about how well these work in actual practice, and how reliable the support is.
And depending on what you exactly want, maybe an
AstroTrac can be used even though it's designed for another purpose.
Cheers,
Bart