Electric Tripod Head

[Jonathan Cross]

I wonder what the market will be for the recently announced Benro Polaris electric tripod head.  I wonder how heavy it will be.  US$599 at launch then US$839.

www.benro-polaris.com

Jonathan

[Rhossydd]

I think there's a lot more anyone needs to know before committing to spend that much.

If really well engineered there could be a market for it.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I'd certainly want to know if it requires a three-mile extension cord before I'd consider buying it!   

[Rhossydd]

I'd certainly want to know if it requires a three-mile extension cord before I'd consider buying it!   

None of the illustrations show a power cord, so presumably it's self powered. The obvious question after that is for how long, then can you connect an auxiliary power supply (there's no obvious socket) ?

Then there's the question of if it actually delivers what it promises. Having bought a gimbal that should offer similar functionality, the reality is that many of the functions either just don't work at all or are hopelessly poorly implemented.

[Alan Smallbone]

It has a battery inside and they claim it will last about 8 hours for heavy use. The knobs will also work manually like a geared tripod head. You can use an external battery to extend life. This information is on the faq on kickstarter. They posted some timelapses etc, it will also do panos according to their website. Check out the faq and the videos on kickstarter if you are interested.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/benropolaris/polaris-smart-electric-tripod-head/description

Alan

[Rhossydd]

There's a lot of very bold claims on that page. Accuracy of 0.01deg with a 7kg payload ? I'll believe that when I see it.

[sbay]

Does anybody know how this thing is going to track stars? As far as I can tell there is no rotation on the device. Maybe only for deep sky objects where linear translation is ok???

Also the star trail image they took was an unfortunately choice. Looks like it was jostled several times... Also why would you need a tracking head for star trails?

[Paul_Roark]

For star tracking, see https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1092106-REG/sky_watcher_s20510_star_adventurer_motorized_mount.html .

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

[Rhossydd]

Does anybody know how this thing is going to track stars? As far as I can tell there is no rotation on the device.

A combination of tilt and pan presumably.

Also why would you need a tracking head for star trails?

From my reading, the point is to track stars without trails.

I would have thought that if you wanted to do proper astromical photography mounting a camera on a decent telescope with a celestial mount would be a better option.

[NikoJorj]

Does anybody know how this thing is going to track stars? As far as I can tell there is no rotation on the device. Maybe only for deep sky objects where linear translation is ok???

Even for DSOs, the lack of rotation may smear the corners on long exposures, and reduces the useful capture area between the images... It may be telling that they show a timelapse of stars where stars are NOT tracked, but the head only pans across the sky while it is rotating.
For that need, better fetch a real equatorial mount - I'm quite pleased with my small Omegon LX2, but that is another story.

[Paul_Roark]

Relating to taking landscapes with the MilkyWay as a background, while I have a tracker, my only good composition that has sold well used no tracker.  It was a pan (content mostly from the 2 end frames) with an 18mm lens on a full frame digital camera.  I put it on my main webpage at https://www.paulroark.com/  .

This stitched 18mm pan was taken at f/4 and 30 sec. for the stars.  The campfire was a much shorter exposure.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

[sbay]

I have a star tracker which rotates. For any wide shots (astro landscapes) you cannot get by with just tilt / pan because the stars move different amounts and directions. I don't do DSO but the comment by NikoJ suggests it might not work well for that either. I'm interested though because I hate polar aligning my tracker (my eyesight is not the best) and the literature suggested it would auto align. Also just curious about the device.

I brought up the star trails because they used such a shot as the header image on their webpage. But it has a number of technical flaws in the image.

[Alan Smallbone]

They track stars by adding another rotating base, how long and how accurate are still waiting to be determined. They also said they have not had a place locally to show examples of tracked stars but claim they will soon. You are not going to be able to focal lengths easily even with a star adventurer. The star adventurer adds guiding on the RA axis. A lot needs to be proved out by Polaris only till it comes to market will we know.
I have a Star Adventurer and I also have a high end astronomy mount so I am very familiar with how well they work. The star adventurer works well for wide angle shots but difficult to get really accurate polar alignment.
Alan

[sbay]

The rotating base was the piece I was missing. It looks like they've updated the kickstarter page with a few pictures (although not many details). Not sure if that's a working prototype or just a mock up.

[Philmar]

hopefully battery will recharge in the field if struck by lightning