Mount

The mount is what it all is actually about. Shooting the nightsky is rather sooner than later producing trails behind the stars due to the Earths rotation. That rotation has to be 'stopped' and while that is an action with some pretty unwanted consequences it is better, and foremost easier, to just counter that rotation by an exact same rotation into the opposite direction with the effect that your camera get fixed in its space to shoot outer space.

There a different types of mounts which roughly divide their world into two regions: the 'normal' ones and the strain wave types. The latter being stronger, looking way less complicated therefor way smaller and lighter and they are quieter. My knowledge is very limited but I did run into a few quirks that gave me 11 months of trouble without knowing where to look until I just bumped into the cause that made me change the mount...

WarpAstron WD-17

My initial choice was the WarpAstron WD-17 because it produces almost no sound except for a tiny high frequency tone that I am still able to hear while my guess is that most people won't. That way it will not draw any attention from passing people when placed in the front garden. Further it can control periodic errors on both axes and it has two strain wave motors that are very strong and therefore it doesn't need a counter weight up to 13kgs of payload. There is more to this mount but this is the more important part.

The mount comes in a double handled well padded case which is very nice as its own weight is some 4kgs and putting it in just any bag is not really what you want. A photo will follow.

Full manual by Chris Woodhouse.

Official Warp Astron Forum.

Firmware resources.