Yesterday we received a pile of stock from Move Shoot Move. This brand is mostly known for its tiny Nomad star tracker.
But in addition to Nomads and other gadgets, MSM sent us a dozen or so of their wedges. I was particularly interested to see (and feel) how good they were.
A wedge is the bit that goes between a star tracker and your tripod. You use it to polar align your tracker, pointing your rotational axis to the South Celestial Pole. Several companies make wedges, which means we see not only a range of quality, but also of features.
If you look at the picture, you’ll notice that the Move Shoot Move wedge fits an Arca Swiss dovetail. You get a matching foot for the camera, but it also fits the base on the Nomad rotator. Arca Swiss is a common choice of photographers. iOptron and Sky-Watcher wedges come with a Vixen-style dovetail.
You can adjust the Move Shoot Move wedge for latitudes between the equator and about 60°. This covers pretty much the entire populated globe.
I had a good play with the wedge, and it’s clean, small and nicely-made. The parts are CNC cut aluminium, rather than being cast. Cast components generally give a rougher finish, less precise threads and clunky adjustment. The knobs are a little on the small side (although not as small as the William Optics wedge), and locking it down once you’re polar aligned might take some finesse.
I like this wedge, especially at the price, Move Shoot Move has finished it nicely. It’s very useful if your tracker has either an Arca Swiss base or a 1/4″ thread.
If you have a computerised observatory, you might know about dome slaving, the process of keeping the shutter on the dome right in front of the telescope. Not only is there a lot of mathematics in this, but also it’s a complicated task to set up the different components of your system. This is the first article in a series on different ways to do this.
PegasusAstro focus, power and dew heater controllers use a range of temperature and environmental sensors. Knowing which one goes with what product can be confusing. Bill’s written a handy list for you.
