After a long break from the astrophotography hobby, I wanted to use the few clear nights this summer to do some astro gear testing.
Since I'm going to be traveling several times this year myself, I came up with the idea of ​​setting up a travel setup. For the camera, I decided on the ZWO 183gt mono camera, which already has a 5-position filter wheel installed. This is particularly compact and saves a little weight compared to a camera and additional filter wheel. In addition, the camera has two fans and can therefore perform very well even on hot summer nights.

The camera works absolutely reliably, the resolution is very high due to the small sensor and the small pixels. The field of view is quite small, but since I'll be working with short focal lengths anyway, it's actually a perfect match for me.
The camera has an unsightly amp glow, but that can be completely eliminated with dark frames, which is why it's not a no-go for me.

A real disadvantage for me is the volume of the cooling. The two fans can be heard quite clearly, which doesn't matter on the field. If you want to take pictures from home, it could well disturb the neighbors. The fans also cause noticeable vibrations. With longer focal lengths, this could lead to problems in the image. This is not an unknown problem with ZWO cameras. I hope that this will be worked on in the future. The fan on my Touptek camera is spring-loaded and does not cause any noticeable vibrations.

I chose the Omegon 61 ED as my telescope. It has a screwable reducer and thus a total of 6 glasses, which leads to a largely pure image without interference.
It is identical to the sharpstar 61 edph II and, with the reducer, has a focal length of 274mm and an aperture ratio of f/4.5. I am very satisfied with this telescope. The image is very good and the most important thing for me: The stars are shown in dots right up to the edges.

For the guiding I used a standard ZWO 120mm mini camera and a converted 30mm finderscope. So far I have always been able to find enough guiding stars with it, which is why I have not yet discovered the need to buy an expensive guide scope here.

It took me the longest to select the mount. It should be quite portable for travel, but I also wanted a mount that I could use not only with a photo lens but also with a real telescope and a mono camera. In terms of price, the goto mounts have risen so much in the last year that you actually think longer before you buy.
In the end, I was actually convinced by the €599 for a complete goto EQ mount, which is why I really wanted to test the Star Adventurer gti with the entire setup.

With the telescope, guide scope, camera and filter, heating sleeve, Asiair and ZWO EAF Autofocus, the setup weighs almost exactly 5kg, which represents the maximum load on the mount.
But with the load I noticed pretty quickly that the newly purchased mount had a very large backlash. However, this can be adjusted and reduced in a few minutes with the help of the instructions and an Allen key. But there is still a bit of play, which is probably nothing to complain about with a mount in this price range.

The control of the mount via the EQ-MOUNT mode works perfectly, directly via the USB cable.
Polar alignment can also be done with the Asiair in a few minutes, the rotary knobs are a bit small, but after 1-2 tries you found out how much effort it takes to find the right setting. The goto function is amazingly accurate. It finds the object without plate solving or any alignment, it then only needs to be minimally centered.

Now, however, the question arises as to how the mount really performs.
I chose the Crescent Nebula (NGC6888) for the test. The object is in the middle of the Milky Way, so it shouldn't be a problem to see enough guiding stars. In addition, the object was near the zenith at the time of testing, so light pollution in the city should not affect the guiding accuracy. This allows you to take a closer look at what the mount can do.
First tests were promising, so I decided to use 180 seconds single exposure time. I was lucky and had almost 8 nights with similarly good conditions.
The result is ok. I was able to use 482 of a total of 658 theoretically usable frames. For the remaining images, the accuracy of the mount was not given and elongated stars formed.
So in total I lost 176 frames or 528 minutes of exposure time.
What sounds like a lot, however, should be viewed in relative terms. I have already tested a similar setup with the ZWO AM5, which, after several improvements, meant that I was basically able to shoot the whole night without tracking errors. However, the price of the mount is in a completely different range and with this telescope it is far from reaching its load limit.
I find it amazing that I was able to collect a total of 482 good images or 1446 useful minutes of exposure time with the Star Adventurer and that with a complete telescope setup. The guiding was between 0.8" and 1.4" total RMS.

All in all, one can sum up that the 5kg is maybe a bit too much and 180 seconds exposure time is a bit too long. Of course, the small pixels of the camera also ensure that small guiding inaccuracies can be recognized directly.
Nevertheless, the Star Adventurer gti seems to me to be a solution that doesn't just have to be intended for travel and not just for photo equipment.