SkyWatcher released two awesome startrackers to take with you to your favorite dark sky location: The Star Adventurer 2i Pro and the GTI. But which one should you get? My main conclusion is that it depends on what you’re looking for. The 2i Pro is about 120 dollars cheaper, it is about 1 kilogram (2 pounds) lighter, it includes a manual dial to start tracking without any hassle, and the 2i Pro can be controlled over WiFi. The Star Adventurer GTI tracks the sky along two axes (RA & DEC) which enables full-fledged autoguiding, it supports USB/WiFi and hand controller options to control your GTI the way you like best, and it includes GoTo and an illuminated polar scope to accurately polar align the GTI and find objects in the night sky.
In this blog, I’ll first get into why you would want to look for a star tracker in the first place, and after that, I’ll discuss the pros and cons of both the Star Adventurer 2i Pro and the Star Adventurer GTI in more detail. Let’s go!
Why should you consider a Star tracker for Astrophotography?
If you are planning to get into astrophotography, you should consider a star tracker for at least four reasons being; the ability to track the night sky; the affordability of star trackers, the portability of star trackers, and the ease of use. So let’s talk about each of those reasons in more detail.
Tracking
The main reason for people to buy a star tracker is the ability to track objects in the night sky. You’re probably aware that the earth rotates around its own axis every 24 hours, and because of that, objects in space like the Sun, the Moon, and the stars, are moving across the night sky during your imaging session. A star tracker is able to track the paths of the objects in the night sky so you can take long exposure photos. The ability to take long exposure photos is super important, as you are able to catch more light which improves the quality of your astrophotography pictures exponentially. Trust me on this one.
Affordability
So let’s move on to affordability. Over the years, I have received many questions from people about what kind of gear they need to start astrophotography. The standard response you got from me is how much money are you willing to spend. And the answer I always get is about $500 dollars or euros. I guess that’s understandable. You don’t want to break the bank when taking your first steps in astrophotography. And that’s where star trackers come in. Star trackers are pretty affordable gadgets in the 500-dollar range. You can use them with a DSLR or mirrorless camera you probably already own to track and photograph objects in the night sky. For star trackers, I’d recommend you keep your focal length to a maximum of about 300mm for your lens or a small telescope. Beyond that point, you’ll need a more expensive setup to accurately track and photograph objects in the night sky.
Portability
Another benefit of star trackers is that they are ideal to take with you on the weekend or holiday trips to wonderful locations. Star trackers are lightweight and compact. Most of them weigh about 5kg or 11 pounds, and they are small enough to put in your backpack or sports bag without any issue.
Ease of use
The fourth advantage of a star tracker is that they are – or at least they should be – easy to set up and use. Just put them on a tripod and polar align your star tracker under the stars. Switch on the device and you’re good to go. Even for more experienced astrophotographers like myself, it is a welcome change to use a star tracker and get up and running in less than five minutes, as compared to having to set up heavier and more complicated astrogear that takes at least half an hour or more of your time, before you can start your imaging session.
Star tracker Star Adventurer 2i Pro vs. Star Tracker Star Adventurer GTI
The option to track, the affordability, the portability, and the ease of use are all reasons why star trackers are so loved by astrophotographers. That’s why Sky-Watcher worked hard towards releasing two excellent star trackers that have all these aspects in abundance; The Star Adventurer 2i Pro and the newer Star Adventurer GTI. But which one should you get? I will not get into every little detail, but I will compare the two trackers along the lines of tracking accuracy, affordability, portability, and ease of use as mentioned above.
Tracking
The most important aspect of a star tracker is that it should be able to track the stars in the night sky, hence the name. And that’s where the GTI will probably outperform the 2i Pro. The simple reason is that the Star Adventurer 2i Pro only tracks the night sky along one axis whereas the GTI tracks the night sky using two axes: Right Ascension and Declination. This means in practice that with the GTI, you can use an additional guide scope and camera to auto-guide your star adventurer GTI along two axes using popular guiding software such as PHD2, which will result in a periodic error of about 1 to 2 arc seconds per pixel.
But…hold one …guide scope, guide camera, PHD2 autoguiding, periodic error, that sounds way too technical for anyone who is just starting astrophotography! Lots of folks use Startrackers because they don’t want the hassle that goes into setting up and using a full-fledged equatorial GoTo mount. So, the star adventurer GTI probably tracks more accurately than the 2i Pro when used in combination with autoguiding. But doesn’t that take the fun out of just setting up your star tracker, polar aligning it, and start tracking the night sky?
And that brings me to another point. Both the GTI and 2i Pro only support a payload capacity of 5 kg of 11 pounds. What that means in practice is that you’re going to put a camera and use a lens or small telescope with a focal length up to about 300mm on that star tracker. If that is what you’re going to use, a good polar alignment should be enough to get round stars when taking one to two-minute pictures of the night sky. Don’t get me wrong, it is great that the GTI tracks along two axes with a full-fledged autoguiding option. Many dedicated astrophotographers will love it. But there are also plenty of people out there who like the simplicity of just switching on a star tracker to take pictures of the night sky without too much hassle.
Affordability
Both star trackers are reasonably affordable. The Star Adventurer 2i Pro is currently priced at 429 euros in Europe, and 520 dollars in the USA, without an additional tripod. The Star Adventurer GTI will be about $640 dollars without a tripod, or $740 with a tripod. So that’s a little bit above that magical price point of about $500 dollars lots of folks are aiming for.
Portability
Both the Star Adventurer 2i Pro and the GTI are very portable. The 2i Pro is a bit lighter at about 2 kilograms or 4 and a half pounds, versus the GTI which weighs about 3 kg or 6 and a half pounds. Both star trackers do come with a counterweight that weighs an additional 5 pounds or 2 kgs, and a V-style mounting saddle to mount a small telescope or camera with a zoom lens. Both star trackers fit comfortably in a backpack or sports bag. So that’s great if you’re going on a holiday or weekend trip and want to take that star tracker with you.
Ease of use
Manual dial
So what about the ease of use? Well, the first main difference between the two trackers is that the 2i Pro has a manual dail you can use to start tracking the night sky at different tracking rates for the sun, the moon, the stars, and a ton of other nice timelapse tracking features. The GTI has the same tracking options but…the manual dial is missing on the tracker. The GTI is designed to be controlled using your smartphone, over a WiFi connection. So you first need to connect your smartphone to the mount using WiFi and download the SkyWatcher console APP to control your star adventurer GTI and start tracking the night sky. A second option to control your GTI remotely is to connect the star tracker via the available USB port to your PC or laptop. That way, you can connect your star adventurer GTI to popular astrophotography imaging software like NINA or SGPro. The star adventurer GTI also supports a hand controller port if you want to control the GTI using an old-fashioned SynScan hand controller the old-school way. A USB port and a hand controller port are missing on the 2i Pro, but you can connect the 2i Pro remotely with your smartphone over WiFi, using that same SkyWatcher console APP as with the GTI. And in my opinion, the manual dial on the 2i Pro is really the quickest and easiest way to start tracking the night sky. I wonder why they abandoned this option when designing the GTI.
SkyWatcher Console APP (WiFi)
The SkyWatcher console app is pretty basic and it doesn’t take a long time to get used to it. It includes a polar clock utility to help you polar align your star tracker. Also, you can set different tracking rates and plan a whole imaging sequence by using the APP. Both the 2i Pro and the GTI have a SNAP port to connect your camera to the star tracker, so the APP can take pictures and manage your imaging session automatically. The APP itself is pretty nice, but it still lacks some essential features to fully automate your session as compared to hardware like ASIair Pro, or popular astrophotography imaging software like Sequence Generator Pro, or NINA. In particular, plate solving and autoguiding options are still lacking in the skywatcher console app. If I would be SkyWatcher, I would work hard toward making these features available in future releases. That would really give them a huge advantage over the other brands and I would be inclined to use that console APP.
Other stuff
Both star trackers have a v-style dovetail with a 5-pound counterweight to mount a camera or small telescope. The 2i pro has an additional connection option to mount; a typical ball head to connect your camera. Be aware that the connection is 3/8″ inch whereas your camera probably supports a 1/4th” connection. You can buy an additional ball head to solve that issue and mount your camera on the star adventurer. The 2i Pro works with 4 AA batteries whereas the GTI needs 8 AA batteries. Both mounts can be used without the need for external power, and the batteries will last for several imaging sessions. This is really nice when you don’t have external power available at your location. Another minor difference is the illuminated polar scope. The 2i Pro has a somewhat flimsy external light that needs to be placed on the mount to illuminate the polar scope whereas the GTI has a better built-in illuminated polar scope that can be controlled via the APP. Finally, the GTI has two-axes tracking and as such, it also supports GoTo. This means you can tell the mount to slew to a particular position or object in the night sky you want to photograph automatically. The 2i Pro lacks such a feature and you’ll have to find the objects in the nightsky yourself. There are plenty of free APPS available like stellarium or sky safari which you can use to help find objects in the sky you want to trach and photograph.
In conclusion
So what is my main conclusion? I have to be honest here, I just bought the Star Adventurer 2i Pro just before the GTI was released…Did I just waste 429 euros and should I have waited for the newer GTI? Well, I’m not sure. The 2i Pro has a couple of advantages over the GTI. It is about 120 dollars cheaper, and it is also about 1 kilogram or 2 pounds lighter, it includes a manual dial so you can start tracking the night sky without having to use your smartphone with the SkyWatcher console APP, but you still have this option if you want to use it. If you are a person who wants a very capable and easy-to-use, lightweight star tracker to take nice astrophotography pictures without too much hassle, then the 2i Pro may still be the perfect star tracker for you.
On the other hand, if you like to have the full-fledged functionality to completely automate your star tracker, the GTI is probably more suited for you and worth the extra 120 dollars. The GTI tracks in both RA and DEC, and it can be connected to popular astrophotography software so you can plate solve, auto guide, and fully automate your imaging session. It also appears to be a bit sturdier as compared to the 2i Pro, and the built-in illuminated polar scope is much better than the flimsy add-on you get with the 2i Pro.
Anyhow, I think we owe SkyWatcher a big thank you for releasing these excellent star trackers on the market which really offers beginners and experienced astrophotographers a fun way to engage in astrophotography. Let me know in the comment section which star adventurer you prefer and why, so we can get into a conversation.
You announce in your videos that you live in Utrecht yet the merchandise links go to US sites! I greatly appreciate the videos on mounts because I am just getting started with astrophotography as a retirement hobby. Your videos along with Trevor Jones’ vids have provided a lot of information regarding mounts for beginners. I retired, with my Dutch wife, to a small dorp just outside of Winschoten. We moved to her country from my country just before the Covid-19 business hit. I do not speak Dutch – my Dutch language class was shut down with the lock-down and I really cannot go back because of all the kids that block the entrances to the building while they smoke their cigarettes – my lungs cannot handle any kind of cigarette smoke. Anyway, just wanted to pass on my thanks for your videos. In closing, my nephew and his wife and son live in Utrecht.
Hi William, thanks so much! Hope you’ll have a good time in Winschoten. People should be able to speak English using the same dialect as I have :-). If you have any questions about astrophotography, just let me know. Clear skies!
Hi. Been watching your videos and they helped me a lot in getting back into astronomy and astrophotography after 15 years of absence (working in hospitals). Now I am back and getting myself reacquainted with my cg5 goto and planetary gear. Your videos inceased my intetests in DSO and got a redcat, mirrorless camera, asi 533 and now waiting for SW GTI. Its quite à big bite to swallow but now that I am retired, time is a luxury that I have. I follow you from Canada. Both you and Astrobackyard are the most helpfull people for people like me. Thank you for your precious help.
Thanks Alain, I appreciate that!
One BIG advantage of the GTI is that, for the additional cost of a hand-controller, it has GoTo capability. For someone new to astrophotography, and probably new to astronomy, finding object to photograph may be difficult if you are using any sort of telephoto lens. For this alone, my vote goes to the GTI.
I have the Celestron Evolution Edge HD 8″ Telescope. Can you recommend an Autoguider set up for my telescope, scope and camera.
I would be willing to spend more money for versatility as I’m starting out in this hobby and unsure what imaging camera that I will end up with. I currently have a Nikon D850 DSLR and a Orion Color CMOS cameras. I just recently purchased the Rainbow Astro RST 135 which is kind of crazy given my level of experience and budget but I’m older and need to break down my rig after every session. Thanks in advance for your feedback and for your videos.
Hello Wido..
i want to buy the star adventurer gti and want to know from your experience after all this time with the mount.. is it okay to put an 80mm refractor on it ? and what about exposure time at such focal lenght? guided and unguided. thank you
Hi there Nomad,
Most 80mm have a focal length of around 500mm. If you want tot take multi-minute astrophotos, guiding is pretty much required.
The GTI with that setup will probably give you somewhere between 1 and 2 arcseconds of guiding accuracy which probably will do the job.
It also depends on your budget. mounts like the SkyWatcher HEQ5 Pro and Celestron AVX have a higher payload capacity so you’d be more comfortable with a 500mm focal length telescope.
But they’re also more expensive. And I recently bought the ZWO AM5 – even more expensive, but interesting as it is a lightweight strain-wave mount that guides under 1 arcsecond. Anyhow, hope this is useful. Feel free to contact me on my contact form.
Cheers.
Wido