 This is the brand new Skywatcher Star Adventure GTI, which is a new compact mount for astrophotography that offers the same go-to functionality that we see in much larger, heavier mounts from Skywatcher. And this mount is ideal for serious astrophotographers who want all that flexibility of computer control and automation, but are okay with a max payload of just five kilograms, which is 11 pounds. And that's actually something that I really like. I'm really interested in that kind of lightweight setup. So what I've put together here is a QHY533M mono camera with a seven-position filter wheel, auto-guiding upfront. And for the optics, I'm using a lightweight Rokinon 135 millimeter telephoto lens. And with this modest setup, I can capture really wide areas of sky, but in great detail. This is just two and a half hours for my home here in Somerville, which is a Bordel 8 sky. And I'll share the full color image at the end of the video. Also in this video, I'm gonna break down all the key differences between the new Star Adventurer GTI and the tried and true Star Adventurer 2i ProPack, as well as a few comparisons to the mount that I see as the closest competitor to the GTI on the market today, which is the iOptron Smart EQ Pro Plus. Hello, my name is Nico Carver and first up with gear reviews, I do disclosures. Skywatcher USA sent me this Star Adventurer GTI a few weeks ago. It's on extended loan so that I could share my thoughts on it, not just in this initial review where I only had a couple of weeks to make it, but in future videos as well as I tried this mount out on more and more projects. No money has changed hands between me and Skywatcher and Skywatcher has no input on what I say in this or any future video about the mount. Also, I should let you know that while this is a production copy of the GTI, meaning this is exactly what's going to be available for sale, I'm making this video before this mount has been officially announced. So I don't have all the final details on price and availability yet while I'm making this, but I think they'll be announced the day that this video goes live. So just check the description for a link because the US price will be up on Skywatcher's site by the time this video is actually published. And the first thing I'd like to say in a review of this mount is that it doesn't replace this guy in my mind, the Star Adventurer 2i. It's sort of a different beast. While many things about it are similar, this is going to be a more expensive and complex mount for people that want all of those added bells and whistles and connection options. And that's not everyone. So I'm going to be making a bunch of comparisons in this video and the point of those comparisons are to help people either who are new to astrophotography and are choosing between these two looking for their first Star Tracker or someone who is maybe looking to upgrade from the Star Adventurer 2i. And before I go any further, let me address terminology a little bit. Typically what we've meant by a Star Tracker is a small mount that tracks the night sky in right ascension only, has a light payload, like usually just a camera and lens like here. And there's no attached computer or hand controller. You just control it by manually moving your camera and lens on the night sky and then turning on tracking with the dial or with an app. And that works great. It's really simple and you can get started really quickly. Outside of a Star Tracker, the other really common kind of mount used in astrophotography is a computerized go-to equatorial mount, which fundamentally does the same thing as a Star Tracker and that it tracks the night sky, but with many added features over a Star Tracker. It has dual motors, one of course on the right ascension axis, like a Star Tracker, but also one in the declination axis. And this second motor allows these kinds of mounts to go to your deep sky object. You type in on the hand controller on your computer, I wanna go to Orion Nebula and it moves on its own to that position in the sky. And the GTI is more in the category of a full-on go-to mount, I'd say, but just in a smaller package. And so I should mention also that for a while now, I think a few years, Skywatcher has made some really interesting little mounts, mainly designed for visual observers, the AZGTE and the AZGTI. And those are go-to compatible as well if you have the SynScan app or a computer connected, but you need a bunch of add-ons to get those working right in equatorial mode for astrophotography, you need the wedge, you need to somehow do polar alignment, you need counterweights and the counterweight shaft and all of that, none of that's in the box. So that changes with this mount because the StarAdventurer GTI has been designed as a package with astrophotographers in mind. And so it has a lot of interesting features in that respect. So let's run through them now. The first thing you'll notice is that this equatorial wedge is now built in to the design of the StarAdventurer and it's mostly metal with nice big knobs. And comparing the weight of the GTI head to the II with the latitude base installed, you can see the GTI is more heavy. It's 6.3 pounds while the II is 4.3. Like the II, the Polar Scope is built in but there are a couple of key differences. The first one is minor, but it's important. With the II with both the front and the back cover off, the Polar Scope will always be clear of obstruction. You'll be able to use it right away. With the GTI, you're also gonna have to turn the declination clutch like this and then turn the whole declination access 90 degrees to be able to see through the Polar Scope. If you've ever used Skywatcher's bigger equatorial mounts, you're already used to this, but I thought I should mention it if you're brand new to the GTI. Because it can be frustrating. You're just like looking through the Polar Scope. You don't see anything. Just remember, you have to turn the declination access 90 degrees like this and then you'll be able to see the Polar Scope. The other thing that's different about the Polar Scope and is a welcome improvement is the red light illuminator is now inside the mount head. So it's not that flimsy external thing that comes with the 2i and I personally never use. And also the amount of illumination for the Polar Scope is adjustable in the SINSCAN app or with the optional hand controller, both of which we're gonna get to later on how to use those. One thing I wish they'd approved on with the GTI but didn't, you can see is this Polar Scope back cover. It falls off way too easily because it's just held in by these little two plastic pressure clips. Next, let's talking about the tripod and the tripod extension. There'll be two different packages with this mount, one with the tripod and extension and one without these two items. And I think it's an okay tripod. I think it's fine for this mount. It's about the same as the one that came with my iOctra on Smart EQ. They both have this chintzy little plastic spreader that locks into place with just the tension of the plastic. I don't really like that. I'd probably never used this extension for actual astro imaging that came with it since I'm not at a low latitude. I'm not planning on using any long telescopes. So it would never be necessary to get everything elevated up from the tripod legs. And that's the reason you use the extension is to avoid collision. If you don't need to use the extension, there's no real reason to use it because the further your payload is up from the ground, the less stable it's gonna be and also more likely to get picked up by wind gusts. The counterweight shaft on the GTI has a wider diameter than the one designed for the IIi. And more importantly, it has a proper thumb screw for the tow saver. I've never understood why the IIi counterweight shaft comes with a washer and a tiny little Phillips head screw for the tow saver when it's meant to be a mobile kit because those are so easy to lose. I did put a bigger washer on mine, which makes it a bit easier to get off and on. But the GTI one is much, much better. Great improvement. Another really cool thing they did with the counterweight shaft in this mount is you can put it in two different positions depending on your latitude on the earth, which means that this mount is usable on the equator. I believe it's zero degrees if you mount the shaft in the top hole and you use the tripod extension. If you're in a mid or high latitude like me, then you're gonna use the bottom hole. And so the usable latitude range on this mount, it looks to be based on this little range indicator thing here, zero to 70 degrees. The counterweight that comes with the GTI is 2.2 kilograms or five pounds. The counterweight that comes with the 2i ProPack is 1.2 kilograms or two and a quarter pounds. And they're not interchangeable since the shaft diameter is really different, 12 millimeters on the 2i and 20 millimeters on the GTI. The heavier counterweight for the GTI wasn't a problem for what I personally wanted to put on this mount, which is this setup, which weighs seven pounds. But let's say I wanted to put a much lighter weight payload on the GTI and will it balance? And the answer is no, it doesn't matter if I use a bare counterweight shaft or if I push the counterweight all the way up, it won't balance an RA with what's included in the box. It will with the 2i. So this is sort of where it gets a little bit interesting between the two, since they have the same payload, but because of the different counterweights included, it sort of limits you to how much weight you can put on top. The iOptron Smart EQ Pro Plus again has the same max payload of 11 pounds as the GTI and the 2i, but it has a retractable counterweight shaft that's just slightly bigger diameter than the 2i, but being able to store it inside the mount is sort of nice. It comes standard with a single counterweight that's only one kilogram or 2.2 pounds, but you can also buy extras, which I have. Of the three mounts we're describing here, I think the counterweight system on the GTI is the one that I'd feel most confident maxing out the payload with. It's a nice beefy counterweight shaft, but the downside of that is that it's hard to maybe balance with lighter payloads, but I'm hoping that maybe a third party or Skywatcher offers optional lighter counterweights. If anyone's considering that, the counterweight bore size is 20 millimeters or 0.787 inches. Moving on to the saddle, it's a nice Vixen clamp with a large knob here for tightening it. The Smart EQ also has a single screw to hold on the plate, but the knob that came with it was so small and difficult that I replaced it with a bigger one. The two eye declination bracket does not use a Vixen saddle, but instead a single quarter inch 20 screw. So what I do, if I wanna use it with a Vixen dovetail plate, is I add on this Berlebach Vixen clamp, which is the perfect size to add to the top of the declination bracket. It looks exactly like it just fits perfectly. Moving on to powering these mounts, a huge advantage to my mind of all three of these mounts is that they can all be powered with either externally using 12-volt battery or internally using AA batteries. And I know some people prefer the iOptron SkyGyder Pro model where it's a rechargeable internal battery, but for me, that doesn't make as much sense on something that you may wanna bring camping for a week on the road and have very limited time to recharge stuff. With AA's, you can always have spares. Even if you wanna use rechargeables like these excellent Panasonic NLUPS. The Star Adventurer 2i uses four AA batteries and unfortunately they are difficult to get in and out. Both the iOptron Smart EQ and the Star Adventurer GTI use eight AA batteries. And while they are pretty easy to take in and out of both mounts, I think the compartment is much better designed on the GTI because I can take these battery holders all the way out, fill them in with the batteries. While the Smart EQ, I have to worry about these thin power leads and possibly breaking those. And then with the cover for the battery compartments, you can see on my Smart EQ, I've messed one up already because it's just uses the plastic clip system to stay on while the GTI uses this nice metal thumb screw to keep the battery door on, which I'm more confident in. Moving on to mount control and connectivity, this is where it gets really interesting and the GTI shines in just how many ways you can connect to this mount and control it. First, we have the SynScan app, which you can also use with the 2i. That was the 2i's major update over the previous Star Adventurer was that Wi-Fi control. However, the 2i did keep the dial for turning on tracking at different rates, including Cedereal, while the GTI has gotten rid of that. And while I think that decision makes total sense for a go-to mount, it's a reason that many people will still prefer the 2i and that it can be so simple and fast just to point manually, turn on the tracking and let it go. However, if you have a smart device connecting with the app to this mount is really simple and I prefer it over the hand controller for a number of reasons. First, let me show you how that connection with the app works. You first turn the mount on with the power, the red power switch right there and then find the SynScan Wi-Fi network it creates and connect to it with your mobile device. Then you open the app, which is a free download. And the first time you open it, you'll probably have to allow it to know your location based on your device's GPS, which you should allow because it makes setup a breeze. And this I think is a big advantage over a hand controller where you have to type that in with the keypad every time. Then you just connect up here at the top. It connects to the mount and you're off to the races. You can do star alignment. You can track, you can slew that has a number of catalogs for go-to. And once you're on an object, you can set the slew rate here. That's how fast it moves. And then you just use the arrow keys to slew around manually. And it really just does everything well. It's very responsive. It's just like using a hand controller. And when you're done for the night, you can choose hibernate back to home position. This app is also where you can control the illumination of the polar scope and it looks like many other things too. I haven't had a chance to explore everything in the app. For imaging though, what I did is I tried controlling it from my computer and treating it exactly like I use my Skywatcher EQ6R. So I've tried it with Windows 10, Windows 11 and I use an EQ direct astronomy cable from Shoe String Astronomy. It connects right into the hand controller port and then I use an FTDI driver for the comm support. And it works well. I know you can also try the USB cable and getting the prolific USB to serial driver on Skywatcher's website. I'm just used to it the other way. For an Ascom driver, which is what allows you to connect the mount to other software packages all at the same time. On Windows, I've always used a driver that is part of the community driven EQ mod project called the EQ Ascom driver. And I used the latest EQ Ascom driver version and it worked great. I left it on auto detect connected. If you're using the EQ direct cable with FTDI, you should use a BOD rate of 9600. I believe if you're using the USB cable directly with the prolific driver, you should use a BOD rate of 115,200. I haven't had a chance to test everything but that's what I remember. Also, if you run this mount with a Sinscan hand controller, that is sold separately. I already had one so I can confirm that it does work and it offers most of the same features as the app. But for me, the app is a better experience because your phone already knows the time, date and location. So it's just a much faster setup and not having to be wired to the mount while controlling it, that's very nice too. But ultimately what I wanna say about connectivity with this mount is kudos to Skywatcher for offering so many options for connection. I think that's the way it should be. And for me, it's the major downside of the iOctron Smart EQ Pro Plus. It has no Wi-Fi, it does come with the hand controller but the hand controller interface for me is sort of clunky. And if you wanna connect the mount to a computer, you need to go from the bottom of the hand controller to a serial connection and then serial to USB. Which does work but it's two cables you have to get for an additional 60 bucks and it's just not as elegant as all of the GTI options for connection. The mount comes with a very well done users manual with lots of pictures and instructions and specifications. In terms of periodic error, I let the guiding assistant in PhD2 run for over 10 minutes. The peak to peak error in red ascension was 46.9 arc seconds. I think that's about what you'd expect from a tracker of this size. The guiding was plenty good for my purposes. I could fully dither in both RA and deck. I could take five minutes sub exposures with round stars. But in a future video, I would be interested to see if I could fine tune the deck backlash on this mount to make it work even better. Because it did seem to have a lot of backlash in deck which would extend the time it took to settle after dithering. At the best of times, I was getting around 1.5 arc seconds total RMS with this mount out of the box. And I was imaging at over five arc seconds per pixel. So with those stats, I had no problem shooting five minute sub exposures with perfectly round stars. The go to accuracy, also called the pointing accuracy was very impressive on this mount, at least with my sample. It was much better than the iOptron Smart EQ Pro Plus and it was also better than the Skywatcher EQM35 which I reviewed this summer. When I was plate solving, I was getting under a thousand pixels of error all the way from home position to a Riga in the south without any kind of star alignment. So that's pretty good. Well, I think I've probably said enough for an initial review, but for people that have stayed around this long, here is my finished first light image with the mount. This is a two and a half hours of HA from Bordel eight and then 15 minutes each of red, green and blue from Bordel four. Total integration a little bit over three hours. And this is central a Riga which includes the flaming star nebula, the tadpoles, the spider and the fly and even the M38 open star cluster. Let me know what you'd like me to try in future videos with this mount. I'll definitely try to get the direct USB connection working and also see if I can tune out the deck backlash at all and explain both of those concepts. To sum up my initial review though, if it wasn't already clear, I think this mount is really well thought out and one that I look forward to using more. I can't comment on value yet since I haven't heard the price. Generally in terms of a recommendation, this isn't going to be the mount I suggest to people looking for their first telescope mount unless the telescope is something small, like a red cat 51 or maybe a 60 millimeter refractor, because the thing is once you load up even a medium sized telescope, like an 80 millimeter refractor with guiding and camera and everything you'd need for imaging, I think you'd be over the payload limit of just 11 pounds, five kilograms. And then you'd be better off with something like the Skywatch or EQM35 or the HEQ5 or even an EQ6R. But for people that want that portability with all the added features and automation that comes with a go to mount, this is going to be I think the new champ. Since this video is over 20 minutes long, you're now seeing all of my current members on my Patreon campaign. If you want to see your name in the credits, you can sign up over on Patreon.com slash Nebula Photos. Patreon, my Patreon has a bunch of benefits outside of your name in the credits, including exclusive videos, monthly Zoom chats, a vibrant Discord community, monthly imaging challenges with prizes, group imaging projects, and a direct way to message me with your comments and questions. So if you like my videos and you want to accelerate your learning in astrophotography further, consider joining over there. It starts at just $1 a month. And again, the link is Patreon.com slash Nebula Photos. Until next time, this has been Nico Carver. Clear skies.