I have had the best customer experience dealing with Hanna. She is the best among so many manager that I have encountered.. She is polite, fast, and always went extra mile to help when I was in doubt. Of course I love their product as well.
I was really impressed with the quality of the sms drive. It’s very compact and a dream to use.
Although using the laser pointer alone for polar alignment gives the ability to track with acceptable accuracy, adding the polar scope alignment has allowed me to use a 135mm lens for exposures of up to 2 minutes without noticeable trailing. The new illuminator makes it quite easy to use. Definitely worth the small extra investment!
For years I was adjusting tripod legs to achieve level. No more! The leveling base
Has definitely simplified the tripod leveling process for me. Love it.
Superior optics. Great field of view as described. My new go to binoculars for birding and astronomy.
Good quality. It’s my second purchase and d I’m very satisfied.
I picked this up as I'd been having trouble getting pin sharp stars, particularly with longer lenses - might be my eyesight. Either way, once you find a star to focus on, this worked fantastically well and removed any doubt that I'd focused correctly. I've ruined a few Milk Way shots in the past because of slightly out of focus shots, even though I was certain they were sharp at the time. Less guess work with the manual fine tuning = peace of mind. Highly recommended.
One of the trickiest aspects of astrophotography is focusing. Due to the low light we work in, getting perfect focus on every shot can be very hit and miss if you’re relying on your camera’s viewfinder or ‘live view’ display. Certainly for me, I really struggled to get perfect focus, often resulting in out of focus blurred shots.
Having read a number of articles about the so-called 'Bahtinov Mask’ which uses optical diffraction to align three ‘spike’ lines to achieve perfect focus. Using your camera’s ‘live view’ display to zoom in on a star, all you have to do is to adjust your focus until the central ‘spike’ sits perfectly between the two outer spikes. It really is that easy! I personally then lock down the zoom ring on my lens using sticky tape before removing the filter. You’re now ready to start shooting beautiful sharp images :-)
The MoveShootMove Star Focus filter fits to any lens with a 82mm screw thread. I purchased mine with an additional 77mm adaptor which comes in very handy if you want to use the filter with lenses like the 70-200mm, 24-70mm or 16-35mm wide angle. Surprisingly, MoveShootMove don’t offer a 95mm adaptor but I managed to pick one of these up on Amazon.
All in all, I would not hesitate to recommend the Star Focus Filter. If you struggle to achieve perfect focus then buy one today - this thing is a must.
Bought the Nomad to supplement my existing MSM tracker but it’s great to use - much less complicated than the original and the increased weight limit allows me to use a variety of lenses comfortably-used with both Nikon d850 and the Nikon z8 - no trails when using only the laser to align up to 240 seconds!
What's the point to the labeling. It's impossible to read unless you're using a magnifying glass. Using the V mount as a multi-row pano head would be great except you can't read the azimuth when closed and as I said the elevation is impossible. The other thing about the azimuth labeling that's weird is there are 4 major marks between the 30 degree labels. That means each major mark is 6 degrees so every minor mark is 1.5 degrees. Totally useless! The longer handles to lock the position in place is a godsend. I gave the rating a 4 because of the lack of useful labeling. I do like the V and Z mounts and have found ways to get around their problems. I do tracked multi-row panoramas using one V mount attached to the tracker that provides a level base for an indexed rotator and a second V mount that handles elevation. Using an indexed rotator and device to measure elevation is ok but I'm working on incorporating those features into a modified V mount.
simple and awesome...really can't manage astro without:)
I am very pleased with my MSM phone mount for my tracker. It is exactly what I needed in order to make my polar aligning much easier. The mount sets up quickly, is easy to use and is sturdy. Definitely is a handy device to have when using a star tracker.
Easy to use setup, perfect for traveling.
Ordering was unproblematic, delivery was within 5 days in Europe, the goods were delivered as ordered and desired, everything works perfectly.
will order from MSM again.
I've been a long-time owner of a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Pro and have a love/hate relationship with the polar scope illuminator on that tracker. I got a MSM Nomad last fall, with the polar scope, glow-in-the-dark illuminator and a laser. The polar scope and glow-in-the-dark illuminator worked ok. This winter, I found out that you could order longer levers for the older design of V and Z brackets (which I have owned for about three years or so), I put them in my cart to refit each of my brackets. Looking around the MSM online store, I also found this handy-dandy illuminator! I have used it three times now, and I absolutely love it! Sky-Watcher could learn a thing or two from MSM when it comes to polar scope illuminators, that's for sure! Way to go, Move Shoot Move! I love my Nomad, and I love it even more now with an amazing illuminator for the polar scope!
Items came well packed and arrived quickly. So pleased.
Got my MSM Nomad tracker as promised. I took it out for one night to Wakan village, a tiny beautiful village situated on top of the Jebel Akhdar mountain.
Setting up the tracker and aligning it with Polaris for the first time was very smooth. Took some amazing pictures of the milkyway core rising at 3:30am.
The tracker is so tiny that it fits in my camera bag. This week I’m in India and shall be shooting stars in Goa, can’t wait!
Performs as i would expect for the product design and use.
Considering it was cloudy for a week when I first got it I decided to see what else I could do with it. It makes a dandy motorized timelapse platform. It'll rotate approximately 150 degrees on a single charge which allows you to pan around a landscape.
The original purpose though is where it really shines. My first night out I took my z9 and 50mm and captured some 120 second exposures. The second night out I put my 105mm on and managed 90 second exposures with zero trailing!
I'm quite happy with this contraption and am hoping for more clear nights in the future to put it through the paces.
Great product, easy to use, fast to align and great for wide angle shoots
Having used this well made viewfinder to reduce the bending over during the process of improving the Polaris alignment is extremely helpful. Easy to adjust, and with the 2x magnification switch, it increases the size of the reticle for accuracy. Happy I purchased it to improve the entire process, after all, it’s supposed to be fun!
360° Flex Tilt & Pan Head - Z Mount is an must to have product helping a better setting of camera! Thanks MSM!
Before I bought the MSM Wedge, I used a ball head for polar alignment on my MSM Nomad. However, I could never achieve exposure times longer than 90 seconds at 24mm. Longer focal lengths were even more problematic. The laser, already aligned, pointed exactly at Polaris, but 90 seconds was still the upper limit. Eventually, I noticed that the ball head was often tilted slightly to the right or left. So I decided to order the MSM Wedge, as tilting is not possible due to its design. When it arrived, I was immediately impressed by the workmanship. There is no play in the threads; everything is made of metal, very robust yet lightweight, handy, and small. Practical testing quickly revealed the enormous improvement: exposure times of 5 minutes at 50mm, and of course also at shorter focal lengths, are now easily achievable. Even at 70mm, you can still expose for 180 seconds without any problems. I've had the MSM Wedge for 6 weeks now and haven't found any defects so far. On the contrary, I can only strongly advise anyone who buys the Nomad to buy the Wedge at the same time.
I am new to using IOptron Skyguider Pro, and was having a hard time polar aligning. Then I saw this mention on Facebook, so I decided to try it.
It made it so much easier to get on to Polaris. Got exposures at 180sec!!
