Help with guiding setup Please

[Tums]

Hi Everyone, I'm after your Wisdom and comments

I have a SW Evostar 80 ed, and would like to start guiding, but I'm unsure what would be the best way to go about it.

My thoughts at the moment, are I have an Orion Starshoot USB eyepiece camera 2, could I use this somehow?? By connecting it to my straight through finder scope. As the scope obviously isn't huge.

Or do I go for some type of dual/side/by/side dovetail setup , and buy another small scope.???

I really don't know which way to go for the best, so All comments /advice will be most appreciated.

[Bizibilder]

Yes you can guide using the finder - the only slight downside is that you may have problems finding a bright enough guide star.  You can buy adapters for this from one of the Astro suppliers?

The "posh" way is to buy something like an ST80   http://www.firstlightoptics.com/startravel/skywatcher-startravel-80-ota.html  and put the guide camera on that - you can either use a dual mount bar for the scopes or simply "piggy-back" the ST80 on the top of the Evostar.  use the bolt holes in the top of the tube rings.

[PeterCPC]

I guide my ED80 using the Orion Mini Guide scope which you attach to the ED80 using the finderscope mount. I then use a QHY5 guide camera using an ST4 cable to the mount from the QHY5. Orion sell a guidescope package like this http://www.telescopehouse.com/acatalog/Orion_Magnificent_Mini_AutoGuider_Package.html

Peter

[Tums]

Thanks Guys, both good suggestions, just have to make up my mind now.

Have been looking at an Altair 50 mm

http://www.altairastro.com/starwave-50mm-guide-scope-kit-straight-thru-with-non-rotating-helical-focuser-no-eyepiece-or-illuminator.html

Obviously this will be my first time at guiding , so trying to keep it as simple as I can.

[Snaxmuppet]

This is something I am looking at also as I am just about to get my first astrophotography setup and so far I have found autoguiding a bit confusing.

I don't want to hijack this thread but I think my question is relevant and probably of interest to many given the thread title so please forgive me

I am unclear just how an autoguide works. Well, I know what it does... it keeps a star, chosen as a guide star, in the same position in the field by sending movement command signals to the mount. This much is clear. What I am not clear on is what is required to make all that happen. What I know I would need is a guide scope of some description (as mentioned above) or an OAG attachment (not my choice tbh), a CCD of some description and a mount that can take the ST4 input. What I am unclear about is how it all connects up or whether you also need a computer to run guiding software... or does the guide ccd plug directly into the mount and everything happens automagically? Do you have to manually select the guide star or does it find one in the field itself?

Like I say... if you consider this too much off-topic just say and I will post separately

[style121]

I have a couple of questions about he mini guider package from orion, as this is also the option I'm keen to go with. Do you now need to connect to a laptop and use software to guide with, like stellarium? I see it takes about 15 minutes for the guide to calibrate and lock on stars. If I then change my target, does the whole process start again?

[Astroboffin]

This is something I am looking at also as I am just about to get my first astrophotography setup and so far I have found autoguiding a bit confusing.

I don't want to hijack this thread but I think my question is relevant and probably of interest to many given the thread title so please forgive me

I am unclear just how an autoguide works. Well, I know what it does... it keeps a star, chosen as a guide star, in the same position in the field by sending movement command signals to the mount. This much is clear. What I am not clear on is what is required to make all that happen. What I know I would need is a guide scope of some description (as mentioned above) or an OAG attachment (not my choice tbh), a CCD of some description and a mount that can take the ST4 input. What I am unclear about is how it all connects up or whether you also need a computer to run guiding software... or does the guide ccd plug directly into the mount and everything happens automagically? Do you have to manually select the guide star or does it find one in the field itself?

Like I say... if you consider this too much off-topic just say and I will post separately

Hi,

Once you have got your guide scope and camera set up, then yes you need a PC connected to the guide camera via USB, this in turn is picked up by software, and the best one and probably the most used, (in my opinion) is PHD guide software.

Once the software is opened you will select your camera from a drop down list, and if you are using an ST4 connection then from the mount list you will select "on camera" as the corrections will go to the mount via the cameras ST4 port.

Then you will start looping an image in PHD. Select a nice bright star and an orange box will go around the star, then you click guide, it will run through a short calibration routine, which is to check the orientation of the camera, as you can put the camera in the scope any way round you wish.

Then the box will turn green and guiding will begin

There is a setting menu but am not going into that now, and when you start guiding for the first time, most of these can be left set at there default and you should get results.

The one that will need to be set is the "calibration step size" as this alters quite a lot for either small or larger guide scopes, and needs to be correct for an individual set up, or it may not complete the calibration routine successfully.

That's it in a very small nutshell.....

Hope that helps to explain

Regards

AB

[bruno]

I have a qhy5ll-L and to set it up I plug it into the st4 on the mount & the usb to the l/top I run it through phd 2 to guide then use backyard eos to capture the imagesthen you can  set up stellarium to guide, I have only tried this twice but i got some successful images of M45 @ 5mins, I think that you have to alter RA & dec in PHD when you change your position of your mount (it's in the graph screen) you can alter the settings & it levels the graph out better if you have a new laptop you will need a usb extension ( i have one that has 4 extra usbs )

[PeterCPC]

Agree with all the above but would add that you need to input details of the guide scope in PHD. Also, once calibrated, the guidescope can be moved to another target and re calibration will be needed if you do a meridian flip or the elevation is greatly different. Also, before you calibrate you should take some darks with the guidescope so that you don't latch on to a hot pixel instead of a star.

Peter 

[Snaxmuppet]

Yes, much clearer now. Many thanks

The more I find out the more questions I have at the moment... sorry.

[Tums]

All good questions and replies. Thanks everyone.