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Average customer product rating:

( 4 / 5 )

Very nice, small and robust

I bought the IOptron Skyguider Pro about 5 months ago and had some opportunities to take it out and field test this. I felt it was worth providing a review some time after it so I had time to get used to the equipment and offer my assessment.

I would firstly like to point out that this was my first dive into Astrophotography and my only guiding mount.
My goal as an ameteur photographer is to photograph Galaxies and Nebula's.

Due to limited space, a general unwillingness to carry exessive weight I wanted something that was small, light and robust and after watching reviews of the Skyguider pro on youtube channels like AstroBackyard and Peter Zelinka I believe that the Skyguider Pro was the answer.

I have given this a 4 / 5 stars review, this in no way reflects on astroshop.eu and their service, it only focuses on my interpretation of the SkyGuider Pro.

In regards to the Skyguider Pro:
The pros:
- It is light weight
- It is compact
- It does its job

The cons:
- The wedge is not the best (where the actual mount / motor rests on and connects to the tripod) I will explain this further
- You will likely have to buy more accessories such as a counter weight extension bar or an extra counterweight if you plan on using heavier equipment example: a Canon 700d and William Optics Redcat 51.


Guiding;
- Once you have correctly polar aligned, set up the correct settings, the SkyGuider Pro tracks the stars quite accurately, admittedly I have not achieved greater that a 50 second exposure with my Camera, this could be down to my alignment more than the guiding itself

The Set up process:
- Set up is reasonably straight forward, once you have the mount out of the packaging, set up on a tripod (sold separately), you need to polar align (as mentioned above) you then add the DEC mounting plate to the front and then add the Counterweight shaft + weight you are ready to go.




The Wedge:
- 1 star is lost from the Skyguider Pro due to its wedge.
- The Wedge has screws that you turn to move the mount left or right or up and down, this enable you to align the SkyGuider Pro to the correct star for polar alignment. I found that these screws particularly the left to right swivel to be challenging and unreliable,
the threading for it is not great either meaning that it takes longer to accurately adjust the mounts position correctly with Polaris or the Southern star, since the SkyGuider Pro and a successful photography session requires careful and precise polar alignment it is really important for accuracy.
I am aware that William Optics have made their own Wedge for the SkyGuider Pro (https://www.astroshop.eu/equatorial-wedges/william-optics-polar-wedge-high-latitude-skyguider-pro/p,64967) I have yet to buy this as I have not reached that point yet.


The Counterweight and bar:
- The point of the counterweight and bar is to take some pressure off the motor when a camera, lens / telescope is added. I found that after adding a William Optics RedCat 51 with Canon 700d attached to the mount caused the mount to be not balanced properly i.e. the Redcat and camera weigh too much.
This means that I will have to add more weight to insure that the balance is even, otherwise I risk causing too much strain on the motors which will likely cause further issues later on.


Unrelated to the actual Skyguider Pro itself, but worth mentioning:
The packaging, purchase and shipping process:
- The box arrived intact and its contents were very secure in the foam included in the box on delivery, so my thanks to the delivery group for that.
- The delivery of the item was shipped out on time and arrived on time, my thanks to .astroshop.eu for that
- The process to buy the items was simple and straight forward, once again thanks to .astroshop.eu for that



Recommended extras:
- You may want to consider the iPolar, if you are stuck in an area where Polaris is not visible due to obstructions or you simply struggle to find Polaris for some reason, the iPolar can be bought separately or you can buy it preassembled with the other Skyguider pro package, the difference between the two
is that if you buy iPolar separately you will need to remove the original eyepiece for polar alignment with the iPolar, if you are concerned with tinkering with a brand new mount you may be better off buying the package that includes the iPolar instead.
- As mentioned the wedge isn't great when you need to fine tune polar alignment, as such you may want to consider the William Optics Wedge as a replacement / substitute.
- Counterweight shaft extension and additional counter weight, this is an option if you plan on adding heavy equipment, since the box comes with a 1.35kg counterweight you may feel that the extra counter weight and extension may be help to take some pressure off the motor.

Very useful

It is very useful. I love pole finder, it is very easy. I cannot try auto guider. But I'm disappointed about camera trigger, because it is not operational unless you have hand controller. Also I expected that it is compatible to telescope tripods, it is not.