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Dropped $120 on a star tracker mount for my phone and got nothing but blurry dots
Back in 2021 I got real into shooting the Milky Way with just my phone and a cheap tripod. Someone in a Facebook group swore I needed a motorized star tracker, so I saved up and bought one for $120. Used it maybe five times over two months, and every single shot came out as smeared lines or faint fuzz. Turns out my phone's sensor just can't pull in enough light, and the tracker can't fix that. I sold it to a guy in Fresno for $40 and put that cash toward a used DSLR instead. Wish someone had told me to skip the gadget and learn stacking with free software first. Anyone else blow money on gear that promised way more than it could deliver?
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skyler_kim26d ago
My buddy went through almost the exact same thing last summer, except his was a cheap tracker he found on sale for like $90. He spent two weekends in his backyard trying to get the Milky Way over the desert and all he ended up with was a memory card full of gray mush. The tracker itself worked fine, it spun the phone right along with the sky, but his phone just couldn't see enough stars to begin with. He finally posted his best shot in a group and some guy told him the phone sensor was the whole problem, not the mount. He returned the tracker, grabbed a used Canon for $200, and his very first night out with it blew away everything he got in two months with the phone setup. That whole experience taught him that stacking software and a decent sensor come way before any fancy motorized gear.
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