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What Guide scope and guide camera is best


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Hi peeps,1st I like to say a big thx for all the help so far,u all have been a great help,for my next step into ap I'm going to buy a guide scope and camera,I have so far a celestron sct 9.25 and a canon 700d with t adaptor and t ring,been doing short expo up til now but want to step it up,I got about a grand to spend on both and hopefully have change for a lp filter,thx again

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With the SCT I would also suggest the Lodestar and an OAG. That will give you the best results with the less fuss. You could get away with a cheaper guide cam but just be warned you will have more trouble finding a guide star if you do. 

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First i wonder what kind of mount you have? If going by your profile picture it seems like you have a fork mount in Alt-Az configuration, if that's the case using it for photo isn't something you will want to do. You would need to buy a wedge to get it equatorially mounted.

A QHY5L-II mono is the guidecam that i would recommend. Very high sensitivity and small pixels which makes it good for short focal lenght guiding too.

For a sct scope i suggest going for off-axis guiding instead of a separate guidescope. This saves weight and deals with the mirror flop problem that sct's have.

An Astronomik CLS clip filter would be a good choice for LP filter.

You should also consider getting a focal reducer/flattener, don't buy the celestron 0.63x as it's total Rubbish.  Someone else here should be able to help you find a good one for your scope.

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The weight of your camera will be fine and all the bits will be fine. Definitely go for an OAG at this focal length and I would also recommend the Lodestar. It is much more sensitive than the QHY5 (having got both) and you really do need a sensitive camera to pick up those guide stars through an OAG.

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First i wonder what kind of mount you have? If going by your profile picture it seems like you have a fork mount in Alt-Az configuration, if that's the case using it for photo isn't something you will want to do. You would need to buy a wedge to get it equatorially mounted.

A QHY5L-II mono is the guidecam that i would recommend. Very high sensitivity and small pixels which makes it good for short focal lenght guiding too.

For a sct scope i suggest going for off-axis guiding instead of a separate guidescope. This saves weight and deals with the mirror flop problem that sct's have.

An Astronomik CLS clip filter would be a good choice for LP filter.

You should also consider getting a focal reducer/flattener, don't buy the celestron 0.63x as it's total Rubbish.  Someone else here should be able to help you find a good one for your scope.

Think that is a bit over the top about the Celestron 0 63x reducer, I had the meade one and that was was not very good and sold and bought the Celestron and is excellent on my 8" SCT, as long as you know the correct spacing from CCD to reducer, if this is not correct then the quality suffers quite a lot. There is not a lot of room for error.

And I tried an OAG on my scope, and that was rubbish, don't bother with one, get a ST80 guide scope and SCT crayford motor focuser to stop the mirror shift, and get 20 min guided subs as I do with nice round stars.

Check out my avatar pic that had 10 min guided subs and look at the nice round stars.

MM

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Interesting isn't it listening to folks thoughts and experiences. I say this as I've found the Celestron 0.63x reducer very good so far and also massively tolerant of the wrong spacing. So far I am about 13mm over and it all seems fine!

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Interesting isn't it listening to folks thoughts and experiences. I say this as I've found the Celestron 0.63x reducer very good so far and also massively tolerant of the wrong spacing. So far I am about 13mm over and it all seems fine!

Yes you are quite right, it was the meade that suffered more with incorrect spacing, the Celestron is more tolerant, I use the Celestron at a set distance of 105mm as that is the shortest I can use, 60mm zero image shift focuser and 45 mm DSLR sensor back focus, and works superbly

MM

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For focal reducers/flatteners take a look at this test: http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/128928-sct-reducercorrector-test/

I compared the TRF-2008 to a Celestron 0.63x on a SCT and the TRF-2008 was much better.

Go for OAG if you keep the fork mount. Guidescope will make your scope unbalanced so you need counterweights on the for mount.

A better option would be to buy a HEQ5 mount, it's much better quality than the fork mount you have and is much more flexible.

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The weight of your camera will be fine and all the bits will be fine. Definitely go for an OAG at this focal length and I would also recommend the Lodestar. It is much more sensitive than the QHY5 (having got both) and you really do need a sensitive camera to pick up those guide stars through an OAG.

Yes the lodestar is more sensitive than the lodestar, but not more sensitive than the QHY5L-II mono.

There is a detailed comparison of the Lodestar and QHY5L-II mono here: http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/5969048/page/2/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1

Here's a guy that has switched from Lodestart to QHY5-II mono: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hiroc/9510921637/

Lodestar was a great guidecam when it was released, but today it's beaten by other cameras when it comes to sensitivity and cost.

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