What's needed for guiding...

[stefski]

Dear All,

After years of sketching, I thought I'd dip my toe into the deep waters of the dark art that is astrophotography. I've got an Atik 16ic (cheers FLO:icon_salut:), a TMB 80/480 on a CG5 goto. I polar aligned it last night, to quite a reasonable degree of accuracy - polarscope, polar finder software etc, and noticed star trails after about 90 seconds of exposure.

I've done a little research and it seems that this is around the norm without guiding...so the question is, what do I need (on almost no budget) for guiding?

I've got a WATEC 120n camera - which gives excellent dso views, semi-live (it integrates lots of frames, refreshing every few seconds, it provides video output so I have a vid-capture usb jobbie) and some 100mm mounting rings. I've noticed PHD software is free (). So what else do I need? Cables etc?

Help most appreciated:iamwithstupid:.

Stef

[rawhead]

One of these - Astronomiser - Automated Astronomy and AstroImaging Solutions - This plugs into the hand controller on your CG5-GT

If you don't have a serial port, one of these - Astronomiser - Automated Astronomy and AstroImaging Solutions

Latest version of Ascom platform - ASCOM - Standards for Astronomy

I'm also going to use PHD for guiding...

I've had it all up and running in test mode, still yet to take a pic

Cheers

Jon

[stefski]

Cheers Jon....I've actually got one of those cables :)already.

I know this may sound silly, but don't I also need another 'scope to do the guiding with, or is there another (cheaper) way:icon_scratch:?

Stef

[rawhead]

Yes, two scopes required...

ST80 is the route I went for (one currently on the forum for £50. New from FLO £85)

Or there's the 'convert a finder' route http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-discussion/109836-finder-guider.html

Cheers

Jon