This was my first attempt at a widefield using a barndoor tracker. I finished it 3 hours before getting on the plane to go on holiday! Based around an M5 thread, it's small enough to fit in a rucksack, though I need to look at getting rid of the play in the thread. As it was designed for use in East Africa on the Equator the pole is found using a sprit level and compass!

The image shown was supposed to be a first practice run, there was lots of light pollution from my torch and the platform was the back of a truck so it wasn't exactly stable! I was intending to try again a few days later when we wildcamped in the middle of the serengeti (!), but my charger blew up. 3 days into a 3 week trip and I was left with four partially charged batteries so I wasn't about to start holding mirrors open for long periods! A shame, because the milky way in the middle of the serengeti was simply awesome...

There's always next year...

(EOS 300D and Sigma 18-125mm Lens)