CLS Clip, camera mod or autoguide?

[pringlepowell]

Christmas conundrum for you.....

I have generous relatives so for Christmas I appear to have the choice of.....

An Astronomik EOS CLS Clip...

Have my DSLR modded for AP.......

Start gathering bits for autoguiding, such as an off axis guider, or guidescope.

Which would you pick? I'm into DS imaging above all else, so am slightly swaying towards guiding, although couldn't afford the whole kit at once!

[Photosbykev]

Modded camera, because that will increase the sensitivity and improve the images using short exposures while you save for the autoguider which can be bought in smaller value boxes. If the LP is very bad locally then the clip filter would be needed first to get the benefit out the camera and/or autoguider

[pringlepowell]

Am I right in thinking that autoguiding negates the accuracy needed in polar-alignment? Or is there just no way around having to do that?

[swag72]

You will still benefit from good Polar alignment even with a guided setup - There is no way around that!!!

[GlassWalker]

If LP is enough of a problem, then get the filter first. Of the other two, it's a harder call. Guiding will get you longer exposures. Modifying the camera means you get more sensitivity in the deep reds, which particularly helps with emission neublas, and less so for other types of objects.

And polar alignment is still required. Actually, I'm in that stage too, as I want to fiddle more with my pier setup so I never did a great polar alignment, so even with guiding there is movement between frames.

[allcart]

For getting your camera modded, try http://www.astronomiser.co.uk/

[pringlepowell]

Cheers for the replies. I'm thinking its a toss up between modding (so my exposure times can be shorter) or guiding (longer exposures possible). At the moment my aligning isn't the best, so I'm wondering whether the guiding is the way to go, just to give me more than 90 seconds or so at a time. I read on here somewhere that if possible, you should use guiding from day 1 - saves a lot of frustration and time.

[dishmop]

I'd go with guiding - even though you won't get the full reds, the longer exposures are pretty awesome and there's plenty of objects to master. I have the same mount as you with an old 200p and can do 15min exposures no problem. You will still want to get the mod on the camera done at some point down the line after you spent a few months perfecting the longer exposures

[pringlepowell]

Well I think I've cracked polar aligning thanks to a useful Iphone App, so I can get 3 minute exposures now with no guiding, but I'm still not getting a good enough amount of detail in objects such as M31 or M1, but the standard camera also means I am incapable of such things as Rosette. Tough decision really. Got a light pollution filter coming, but its looking like guiding to me.

[m.tweedy]

Well I think I've cracked polar aligning thanks to a useful Iphone App, so I can get 3 minute exposures now with no guiding, but I'm still not getting a good enough amount of detail in objects such as M31 or M1, but the standard camera also means I am incapable of such things as Rosette. Tough decision really. Got a light pollution filter coming, but its looking like guiding to me.

What is the useful I phone app if you don't mind sharing. Thank you

[pringlepowell]

Its called Polaralign 4.0, first time I've ever understood those setting circles!

[m.tweedy]

thank you. I also use that app