F7 Guideing advice Please

[SJC03]

I am fortunenately soon to get a small windfall, and with consideration in using it I am thinking of auto guideing and ccd imaging.

In the past guide scopes near or better than the focal length of the image scope was considered good,

however now short guiders but faster appertures seem to be the thing and between F2.8 and F5 seem the fashion.

The scopes I own and will use are F7 80mm 550 length so what CCD guider works at this length ?

I will also need to get EQmod and as also I needto setup to a computer in house as my mount is local to my back garden through a patio door,

a long 12m repeater usb2.0 lead from Maplin has been aquired already,

and a further 12volt power suppy for the ccD will be needed.

I may splash out on a new main scope also Ian king sell a very tempting Ikharus 102mm @ F7

Any thoughts or advice please on CCD guiding, scope or CCD imagers ?

[Merlin66]

A QHY5 camera, a ST80 scope, and support rings. I'm assuming you have a HEQ5 Synscan mount (?) Then a ST-4 to ST-4 cable will allow you to connect the guide camera to the mount. You don't need EQMOD to work remotely.

Which CCD imaging camera depends on what you want to do? Then there's the choice of Mono + filters or OSC (One shot colour)

[SJC03]

You miss my point Merlin why buy a F5 ST80 when I want to use my F7 80mm . I understand that a QHY5 struggles above F5 so together I am spending on things I wish to avoid. Yes I do have a HEQ5 Pro and a ST4 cable will be required.

[Merlin66]

SJ03,

Point not missed...I thought you were going to use the ED80 for imaging.....

I use the QHY5 at f10 on a C11 scope to guide a spectroscope - no issues!

I've never heard of the QHY5 struggling.....

So, which scope will be used for imaging???

[SJC03]

Hopefully the Ikharus for image but with the F7 80mm as a alternative. I believe some users here have had difficulties with the QHY5 above F5 and I am thinking a lodestar may be a better bet. A C11 light gathering would I suspect mitigate the qhy5 problems which I think was focus related.

[SJC03]

How do you get on with the atik 314 as that is a consideration for the imager ?

Is it the mono version ?

[Merlin66]

Hmm

I also have a Lodestar, and yes with very faint guide stars it performs better.....90% of the work IMHO can be done with the QHY5.

Yes the 314L+ is mono and is very good, QE etc for the spectroscopy I do. It's a good camera.

[SJC03]

Merlin thanks for the input..

Which colour wheel and filters do you recomend as that is a area I am totally lost on. I have never done any CCD stuff being a Canon 40D user with mixed results on astro stuff.. I am for nebulae wispy stuff but failed partly due to light polution and probably operator error LOL

[Merlin66]

Sorry, can't help....I gave up on imaging and went over to the spectroscopy side....

[SJC03]

That is a area I know nothing about. Thanks for your input anyway.