Auto Guider.

[BEYOND EARTH]

I'v been looking for a good auto guider that would not break the bank and came across the Orion Magnificent Mini AutoGuider Package, LINK. I'm new to astrophotography and could use all the help I can get when choosing an auto guider. Also I know you should have an auto guider when taking deep sky images but how much of a difference does it make?

[dmahon]

Without an autoguider, you'll probably be limited to 120 second images unless you have a great mount and great polar alignment.

With an autoguider, you can get away with good polar alignment and a good mount (great still helps though), and still manage to take images of 20/30 minutes duration.

Lots of people here have and use what you've linked to - including me. But we bought it and put it together ourselves, using:

QHY5 camera

Skywatcher / Orion 8x50 finder scope

$30 adapter allowing the two to fit together

I think that Kwiq also manufacture something as a package.

Orion have also put together the equivalent of a QHY5/ST80/guiderings/dovetail as a package as well.

[BEYOND EARTH]

Sounds good, thank you for your help and time!

[BEYOND EARTH]

So after reviewing some other auto guiders, I just found out that just about all need to be connected to a pc.. and I have a mac. Do you know of any that work with mac?

[dmahon]

PHD works on macs.