Guide scopes and astrophotography

[loakessg]

Hello.  Im getting into astro photography and have been doing multiple short exposures and stacking with varying results. I'm doing 3sec exposures assuming this is the longest I can do without star trails? I do have ra and Dec motors but obviously if not 100%  polar aligned I won't get long exposures.  Well I'm looking into autoguiding with a guide scope. Question is, is there any advantage in buying a proper guide scope over buying a second hand reasonable cheap refractor and using that?

Any thoughts/advice

Thanks 

Sean

[Davey-T]

A lot of folk use the SW ST80 £50.00/£70.00ish SH , the original guide scopes were just half a pair of old binoculars so pretty much anything will do, no need to spend hundreds on a "guide " scope.
Mechanical limitations of the mount will be your next problem  has it got a guide port ?

Dave

[Tinker1947]

I use a ST-80 with a CCD, works well, if you don't have a ST-4 port Pulse guiding will work, does mean running EQMod, PHD and these require a PC or Laptop.....Look at a HEQ5 or NEQ6 Mount if the budget allows....

[loakessg]

5 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

A lot of folk use the SW ST80 £50.00/£70.00ish SH , the original guide scopes were just half a pair of old binoculars so pretty much anything will do, no need to spend hundreds on a "guide " scope.
Mechanical limitations of the mount will be your next problem  has it got a guide port ?

Dave

Hi thanks for the info. I have the skywatcher dual axis motordrives which has st-4 interface if that's what you mean by guide port

[Davey-T]

39 minutes ago, loakessg said:

Hi thanks for the info. I have the skywatcher dual axis motordrives which has st-4 interface if that's what you mean by guide port

Yes, that's the thing.

Dave

[glowingturnip]

i'm a total cheapskate and use a Celestron T70 travelscope that I got off ebay for £40 as a guidescope, and it works perfectly well.  See no reason to upgrade it.  Mounting it was a bit tricky though