wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

I own an Olympus system and the 300 f4 along with a 1.4X teleconverter. I would like to start doing some astrophotography. Right now I am looking at the iOptron SkyGuider Pro with polar finder and the Sky-Watcher Star Adventure Pro. What are the thoughts and suggestions for these two trackers. Also, I have two reasonably sturdy and stable tripods. Should I still think about getting a separate, different tripod for either of these two trackers? Any and all feedback is welcomed.

SHWeiss

The star adventurer pro has a better declaration adjustment, it is harder to find deep space objects without a go to mount, the eqm35 might be better. Also at your focal Length the trackers you mention will have difficulty getting pinpoint stars with exposures over 1 or 2 minutes without an autoguider

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

One of the articles I read indicated an autoguider for the iOptron as an add-on. Does the Star Adventure Pro allow for such an add-on? If so, what are some of the autoguiders I should be looking at (for either tracker)? Also, since I am using a 4/3rds system, I want to make it clear that the lens will have an angle of view of a full frame 600mm and 840mm with the teleconverter. I don't want to mislead someone into giving me poor advice because they were not aware of this.

SHWeiss

Star Adventurer has a autoguider port, the autoguider can perfect your polar alignment using a laptop or another accessory (AISAIR Pro) if you instead want to use your phone to control it. The ZWO 120 mini is a popular autoguide camera when paired with this scope (ZWO 30mm f/4 Mini Guide Scope)

Europa Loc: West Hills, CA

Autoguiding is on RA only. So it’s not going to help much (most say not at all, but I have no experience on that topic).

I have the Skyguider Pro, I really like it, but I did replace the declination with a William Optics one. The ioptron one did work, but it’s not very smooth.

Really good polar alignment is essential. I don’t know about it’s performance at 800mm. I have used a William optics Star 71 and had nice round stars over a 2 minute photo.

Since these are trackers and not goto’s, it can be challenging to find targets. I got mine to be as portable as possible, I really like it. My plan was to use it with a DSLR and lens range from 50mm to 135mm.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

Every article indicates how important polar alignment is for beginners. I guess that my biggest item to initially learn. It is starting to sound reasonable to purchase good support equipment along with the tracker.

Orphoto Loc: Oregon

I use a sky guider pro. After a couple of years switched to the williams optics base for additional stability. Am able to get round stars at 2min using 500 f4 lens on d850. This is pushing the weight limits.
I have found that gitzo 3 series carbon tripod works just fine along with large markins ball head.
The hardest part for me starting out has been finding these targets in the sky. Longer lenses complicate this. Polar alignment has been fairly painless. Access to relatively dark skies is hugely helpful.