Help with imaging setup

[Stryda]

I'm a little lost regarding the equipment that is essential for imaging.

I have an 8" LX10 and a canon 50d. At the mo i image through the scope with t-adapter etc...however, the tracking isnt great ( not sure if its the motor or the hand controller), however I may purchase a guide scope- am I right in assuming you can use an autoguider in the guide scope? Will this work ok? And im not sure on how autoguiders work...do they attach to the motor and your laptop, and communicate through PHD etc? If this is right would my setup of main scope with dslr and guide scope with autoguider work? Or do i need even more accessories?

Sorry for all the questions....little lost....

[CGolder]

I get the feeling your not going to like the majority of the answers here and nor will your bank manager

a few Cheap answers are to make sure the wedge alignment as as good as possible using the drift method. Consider using a focal reducer (6.3) to lower the focal ratio of the scope which will make the errors less pronounced.

the drives on this mount is a basic clock RA drive and wont take to autoguiding.

For autoguiding your need a more sophisticated mount.. like a EQ5, HEQ5 or EQ6.

Ill let those who do autoguiding give you move in depth answers as I don't guide.

Colin

[russ]

Not sure how to break it to you but it's a whole combinations of things with your setup that will be holding you back.

Scope - very long focal length, even with a great mount it will be hard to get an unguided image. Guiding will be key. You can reduce the focal length with an f6.3 reducer.

Mount - the LX10 was never the last word in quality driven platform. I found mine was poor even for visual, with the gears jumping. Plus good polar alignment with a wedge is tricky too.

Guiding - there's no guide port with the LX10. There maybe some mods on the web for modifiying the hand controller to add a guide port. But isn't the dec motor on a short worm? It can only turn for so long and then you have to rewind the worm. Maybe getting confused with my old LX6?

The camera is great btw

And the scope is also great and will work well on the right mount

But you would be better off stripping it from the forks and buying an EQ mount for it.

[Stryda]

Thanks for the replies guys. To be honest...I've had the scope a while and could do with upgrading it, and have also been looking at eq5's etc...the lx10 mount as I can remember stopped working only a few months after I bought it brand new, however I've only got into imaging the last year or so, and so didnt really mind.

I think a new mount will be next then.

Any suggestions on a good value autoguider for when I do manage to get a mount?

Thx

[ollypenrice]

Like a good number of other people I threw a lot of money at an LX200, bought wedge, Crayford, guide scope etc and never got it to track well enough for imaging.

Personally I would leave the LX10 out of the imaging altogether and use it visually. Nice scope for this purpose. They have a lot of problems as DS imaging scopes. Mirror shift, focus (you do need a Crayford), vignetting, collimation, long focal length... Hard work and not likely to give great results. Instead, for imaging get a small fast refractor on an HEQ5 or NEQ6.

I heartily wish I had left my LX200 alone and kept it for visual.

I'm glad someone else said most of this first! The trouble is, the SCT sales blurbs would have you believe they were all set up for imaging when, in reality, they are the least imaging-ready setups on the market.

Olly

[russ]

Just to carry on from Olly's post. I found the LX10 forks to be far from brilliant, even the LX50 i bought to replace the LX10, was less than impressive. Both scopes were dramatically better to use even on an EQ5. So even if you don't use the LX10 tube for imaging, i would still recommend trying it on whatever EQ you buy. You'll be amazed how much better a scope can be when it's not vibrating.