Home Made Paralactic Mounting

The paralactic mounting is an absolutely essential device in astrophotography. It makes precise movement of the camera during exposure possible. If we try to take photographs using a fixed tripod the Earth's rotation would blur the image significantly after just a few seconds. I constructed this paralactic mounting originally for photographing of Halley's comet in 1986. Between 1989 – 90 it underwent a thorough reconstruction whereby I replaced the manual control with an electronic one (integrated timer/oscillator 555 circuit used). The mounting is suitable for exposure times up to 20 minutes with focal lengths of the lens up to 300mm. I use the Monar 5/500mm lens for an object pointing. In the picture, a Praktica camera with the Tair 3 4.5/300mm lens is mounted as a counterweight. This paralactic mounting I have used to take several hundreds of pictures of the Hyakutake comet (1996) and Hale - Bopp comets in (1997).