Guide Camera

[johnrt]

My QHY5 of 6 years has bitten the dust, and is no longer recognised by windows. I've swapped cables, tried every USB port, uninstalled and reinstalled drivers, software, ASCOM with no luck. I think I have to finally admit defeat.

So, where is the smart money going on guide cameras at the moment, obviously the Lodestar V2 is great, but £450 for a camera that will never produce an image to see the light of day somewhat pains me.

What is the slightly cheaper SX CMOS Costar Autoguider like, or the Atik GP? Or at the cheaper end of the market the QHYII or Altair GPCam?

My requirements are it needs to be simple, work without issue and cause me no bother. It will be used in an ST80 to guide my RC at around 900mm focal length.

 

Your thoughts are very welcome.

John

(currently without guidance)

[johnrt]

Or the ZWO ASI120MM !!

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi120mm-s-usb-3-mono-camera.html

[ChrisLX200]

At the price the GPCAM2 mono is tough to beat, very sensitive and low noise. It will do everything you need as a guidecam. I have Lodestar, QHY5L-II, GPCAM1 and GPCAM2, ASI178 and ASII174 cameras so I'm not short of comparators.

ChrisH

[D4N]

Yeh I have and ASI120mm and it works great.

Note that you don't really need the USB3 version for guiding so the USB2 version at £174 might be more cost effective if you don't intend to do any planetary imaging with it.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi120mm-usb-2-mono-camera.html

[johnrt]

The ASI120MM is out of stock for a while, so it looks like I will go with the GPCAM2, looks like it will rake care of everything with no fuss. 

[johnrt]

GPCAM2 mono arrived today (prdered yesterday) from Altair, installed, set up in PHD2, taking subs and ready to roll in under 5 minutes. A very different experience to getting the old QHY5 working, that was a maze of drivers and fiddling. The GPCAM is simple and no fuss, exactly what's required from a guide camera.