ASI120, QHY5v, Atik Titan, Starlight Express?

[Fordos Moon]

I have an ED80 on an HEQ5 mount.

I want to start guiding to enable longer exposures for DSOs and take the odd planetary image that looks better than my Xbox webcam ones.

What is best compromise?

I'm considering the ST80 as a guide scope.

I realise I may be wanting too much!

Thanks

[SnakeyJ]

Fordos,

There's some interesting thread and favourable comparison of the SX Loadstar against the QHY5L-II M over on CN. Though I'm using mine to experiment with imaging, rather than guide (where I've just managed to get my firefly mv working), I can attest to the excellent sensitivity. It's light weight, has ST4 port, ascom drivers and arguably more robust connection ports than the loadstar. It also makes a very nice planetary/solar imaging camera. The ASI120MM is the same sensor and similar performance, but it's a bulkier/heavier design and currently more expensive. Worth consideration anyway.

On the finder scope side, I've just brought a Celestron Travelscope 70, which I've mounted piggyback on my 200P. This came in at £ 49 delivered from Amazon, around half the price of the ST80 OTA, though that was without tube rings. However, I think if you were seriously guiding with either you would want to source some decent tube rings to minimise flexure.

Jake

[DrRobin]

Hi Fordos,

I use a QHY5 (the older model) on a modified 50mm finder on both a C11 and an 8" Quattro with an EQ6, it works very well. I never fail to find a guide star and flex doesn't seem to be a problem. It is both low cost and your scope already has the finder shoe so quick to do. If you find it isn't accurate enough you can always upgrade later.

Robin

[NickK]

Fordos,

There's some interesting thread and favourable comparison of the SX Loadstar against the QHY5L-II M over on CN. Though I'm using mine to experiment with imaging, rather than guide (where I've just managed to get my firefly mv working), I can attest to the excellent sensitivity. It's light weight, has ST4 port, ascom drivers and arguably more robust connection ports than the loadstar. It also makes a very nice planetary/solar imaging camera. The ASI120MM is the same sensor and similar performance, but it's a bulkier/heavier design and currently more expensive. Worth consideration anyway.

Interesting comments about the Lodestar in that CN thread. I can only comment on the Titan from my experience. So here's my two pence Before I start I support I'll have to point out - (a) I don't work for ATIK and ( I wrote the ATIK OSX drivers - but I do own an ikkle Titan and a 16IC and 383L, played with the 4000 and 11000...

I found it to be a good continuation from my 16IC that I've used in the past to take DSO images. The 16IC is the same sensor but USB 1.1 hence takes 4 seconds to download!

The titan will do very fast exposures (0.00001 exposures) and I've seen doing about 17-19 fps with preview mode enabled (sacrificing some image quality for speed), or a slightly lower fps in non-preview mode (I can't remember but at least 5-7 fps) at full frame resolution at binning 1x1. It will take very very low noise DSO images like the 16IC. I find for DSO detail imaging that the 7.4um is a bit big - my preference here is smaller pixels but as it's a guide cam the larger pixels help and if needed it can run in 2x2 binning to make it more sensitive.

I tend to use the Titan for guiding via OAG and solar due to the exposure speed and because the pentax, even at 1340mm, means planets are smal in it's large FoV. I've had images from Venus with banding and saturn but my scope needs more aperature and focal length!

The titan has an automatic black-level adjustment option too for planets etc but to be honest I set it up and let it run for 1000+ exposures then grade them in the processing

This is a 16IC long exposure stack from SGL6 after 2 weeks of AP experience (unguided) IIRC this was about four 5 minutes exposures, the Titan will do the same (with better noise than this). It's been stretched etc but not bad considering no flats or darks. I could probably do a lot better with the same equipment now with the post processing knowledge I have:

A single solar, sub from Olly P's Lunt 60 I played with:

I'll dig out a couple of close while light exposures that show the granularity around the sunspots later.

[NickK]

Here's the crop from a sun spot using the Titan with the exposures registaxed:

There are more proficient people out there but I find it good to have something that will do quick images.

[Fordos Moon]

Interesting comments about the Lodestar in that CN thread. I can only comment on the Titan from my experience. So here's my two pence http://stargazerslounge.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/smile.gif Before I start I support I'll have to point out - (a) I don't work for ATIK and ( http://stargazerslounge.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/cool.png I wrote the ATIK OSX drivers - but I do own an ikkle Titan and a 16IC and 383L, played with the 4000 and 11000...

I found it to be a good continuation from my 16IC that I've used in the past to take DSO images. The 16IC is the same sensor but USB 1.1 hence takes 4 seconds to download!

The titan will do very fast exposures (0.00001 exposures) and I've seen doing about 17-19 fps with preview mode enabled (sacrificing some image quality for speed), or a slightly lower fps in non-preview mode (I can't remember but at least 5-7 fps) at full frame resolution at binning 1x1. It will take very very low noise DSO images like the 16IC. I find for DSO detail imaging that the 7.4um is a bit big - my preference here is smaller pixels but as it's a guide cam the larger pixels help and if needed it can run in 2x2 binning to make it more sensitive.

I tend to use the Titan for guiding via OAG and solar due to the exposure speed and because the pentax, even at 1340mm, means planets are smal in it's large FoV. I've had images from Venus with banding and saturn but my scope needs more aperature and focal length!

The titan has an automatic black-level adjustment option too for planets etc but to be honest I set it up and let it run for 1000+ exposures then grade them in the processing

This is a 16IC long exposure stack from SGL6 after 2 weeks of AP experience (unguided) IIRC this was about four 5 minutes exposures, the Titan will do the same (with better noise than this). It's been stretched etc but not bad considering no flats or darks. I could probably do a lot better with the same equipment now with the post processing knowledge I have:

A single solar, sub from Olly P's Lunt 60 I played with:

I'll dig out a couple of close while light exposures that show the granularity around the sunspots later.

Nick thanks for taking the time into this response! Very helpful, and thanks others for your responses too

[swag72]

I can only speak of my own experience of guiding and I have been using a QHY5 from the start. I use it with a finder guider and I've never failed to find a guide star yet. It does all that I ask of it. I used to use it with an ST4 cable, but now use pulse guiding through EQASCOM, it's done well on both counts. If you can pick one up second hand, it's a good budget option I would say.