As Earth rotates once on its axis every 24 hours, this type of mount rotates slowly in exactly the opposite direction to compensate, essentially freezing the sky in position in your eyepiece.
These mounts employ an ingenious design to track the sky where the axes of movement are parallel and perpendicular to Earth’s rotational axis. This is achieved by pointing the mount’s axis toward Polaris; the same star that Earth’s axis points to. As Earth rotates once on its axis every 24 hours, this type of mount rotates slowly in exactly the opposite direction to compensate, essentially freezing the sky in position in your eyepiece. These are more complicated to set up than Alt­azimuth mounts, but are an absolute MUST for astrophotography. When you purchase your mount from us, we will give you instruction on how to align the mount so it will track properly. These kinds of mounts can also be manually operated or powered to find and track objects for you. Some great beginner options are Celestron’s Omni CG-4 mount or their Advanced VX. iOptron offers a very compact CEM26, and Sky-Watcher USA has the AZ-EQ5 which can be used in Alt-Az or Equatorial mode in the same package!