You don't need a drive for lunar / planetary imaging. The exposures are very short, and the stacking programs can compensate for the planet's drift across the chip.
But obviously, if your old mount has a polar drive, and the alignment is good, keeping the target in the chip's tiny FOV makes imaging less stressful. And, I've found that keeping the target close to the chip's center during the capture makes for a more detailed final image. My 1980s Meade mount uses a battery-powered mechanical polar drive that is very accurate -- visually, it'll keep the planet near C-O-F (Center Of Field) at 300x and higher. But my 1964 Sears (RAO) 6336 has an even older mount & plug-in polar drive that is almost as accurate. Ditto for my 1971 RV-6 plug-in drive.
IOW: If your vintage mount tracks good enough to keep a planet near COF at 200x or higher visually, it should do well during your imaging sessions.
I can use 300 second (5 minute) captures at 30 fps (frames per second) for 9000 frames in one video file with all 3 of these old mounts. In general, the more frames to stack, the better the resulting image.
RV-6 Jupiter ~ 11000 frames:
I'd say this old economy scope mount & drive are good enough for planetary imaging.
In comparison, my 1956 Goto-Hy-Score - a 60mm refractor - required manual tracking:
Not bad for a small refractor, but I could've done better. I was determined not to have a yellowish disk (something I see with my fracs), and took out too much color!
(Goto offered a plug-in drive for these mounts, and I'd love to have one - bet it's pretty accurate, too!)
Edited by Bomber Bob, 08 February 2017 - 04:57 PM.