Guiding

[SJP]

Having only just made the jump to basic guiding (using a Celestron NexGuide) I'm somewhat ignorant of the intricacies so my question is, how often should the guider clunk the drive motors?

The other evening after a basic polar-alignment, the guider was clicking the drive motors on/off something like every three to five seconds - is that normal?

[oldpink]

it should be pretty constantly correcting the mount
 

what mount / scope / guide / software are you using, may help answer your question a bit better

[SJP]

I have a Celestron CG5-GT  mount with a C6N (Newt) OTA with a 60mm (280mm Focal Length) ZWO guide-scope with Celestron's NexGuide attached.

I was just concerned that frequent adjustments would wear-out the mount/motors!

[Guest]

Hi,

The frequency of the drive being sent a signal to move, will be dependant on the accuracy of your initial polar alignment, the better the PA then the less correction needed, but any mount will always need some correction at some point, even the most expensive ones have some amount of periodic error in the drives.

Moving every 3 to 5 seconds will not be a problem at all for the drives, but you could probably improve it with better PA, but I would not worry, if the guiding you are doing is giving good images, then just enjoy.

Regards

Olly

[SJP]

The basic PA I've been performing (using a polarscope and iPhone polaris app) has been good for 60 second subs, and I've extended this to 600 seconds with the guider so I'm happy on that front.

It's good to know that I'm not destroying my mount in the process though

Thanks for allaying my fears.