Is guiding a Star adventurer with a Redcat worth it?

[5haan_A]

Hi Guys,

 

I have recently picked up a star adventurer the mount and I was wondering whether it is worthwhile using the autoguide functionality with it. I plan to use it with both a DSLR for widefield, and a WO Redcat. I hope it will be portable and easy to pick up and take with me on my travels. 

 

I am used to guiding with my eq6 mount, but when I do the mount is guiding in both RA and DEC, but with the Star adventurer it only guides in RA. I guess a lot will come down to exposure time, and certainly for the DSLR and widefield shots RA guiding should be more than adequate, perhaps even overkill, but with the Redcat will RA guiding do anything at all. By the way when I say guiding I mean the corrections in RA as opposed to the mount tracking. 

 

If anyone has a similar set up, especially with a redcat or similar focal length OTA I'd be really interested to hear your experiences. My biggest concern with just guiding it anyway is that I think I would have to have two laptops with PHD2 on each if ever I was guiding both the star adventurer mount and the EQ6 mount at the same time. Whereas, if I don't guide the star adventurer I could get away with just having one laptop to guide and capture with EQ6 mount and have the star adventurer/DSLR/redcat combo used with just a shutter remote, which does save me hassle in a way. 

Best,

[symmetal]

With the Star Adventurer getting good polar alignment is important. If you have to polar align before mounting the scope and camera you can easily knock it off alignment while you're fitting the scope and camera.

A big benefit of having a guidescope is being able to use Sharpcap's polar alignment tool with the Star Adventurer, which makes PA very easy, and can be done once everything is fitted to the mount. If your PA is good then Dec drift is not such a problem, though there will still be periodic error in the mount which could cause an issue using the 250mm Redcat with longer exposures. Guiding would also remove this periodic error problem.  I use a Zwo Mini Finder with ASI120 on my dual ZS-61 scopes on an HEQ5 and it works perfectly with Sharpcap's PA tool. It will mount on the Redcat's finder shoe bracket easily.

A further benefit of a guidescope is you can manually dither if you wish by looking at the PHD2 image and see how far the star actually moves for each dither, rather than guessing how much to move the mount Dec and RA controls.

Can you not run 2 instances of PHD2 on the laptop to control both mounts?

Alan

Edited June 28, 2020 by symmetal

[5haan_A]

1 hour ago, symmetal said:

 Can you not run 2 instances of PHD2 on the laptop to control both mounts?

Alan

Can you?

 

I dont know, if you can it would be good just for the polar alignment with sharp cap like you mentioned. I hadn't even thought a about having to add the redcat on after PA. You're right adding it would definitely knock it and mess with the polar alignment.

Thanks,

[symmetal]

10 minutes ago, 5haan_A said:

Can you?

 

I dont know, if you can it would be good just for the polar alignment with sharp cap like you mentioned. I hadn't even thought a about having to add the redcat on after PA. You're right adding it would definitely knock it and mess with the polar alignment.

Thanks,

I've not tried it but according to this CN topic it looks like you can. 🙂

Alan

[fwm891]

I've used the SA with a WO ZS73 and finder guider attached. Like @symmetal says PA is all important with the SA. I've managed 5 min subs with this combo.

 

Edited June 28, 2020 by fwm891
link added

[Kyle Allen]

I use a William Optics Zenithstar 61 on my Star Adventurer. I find it necessary to guide otherwise I lose too many exposures due to periodic error. I use SharpCap Pro to polar align using my guide scope. It also allows me to dither, which I find really useful for removing hot pixels.