Top end Mount and / or (auto) guiding

[SteveKinder]

Hi,

I am relatively new to Astronomy and even newer to Astrophotography but 100% hooked and in the fortunate position where cost is not my prime concern. Don’t get me wrong you don’t get to the point where cost isn’t your prime concern without being very careful with money but I have reached an age where in the limited leisure time I have I would rather save time and frustration than a few quid.

My question is, if I can afford a top end mount then should I buy one before trying (auto) guiding on my CGEM? After many frustrating evenings I am at the stage where I can align my CGEM mount adequately for observing but I am still not getting above 45 – 60 seconds of exposure time unguided. Next time out I am going to try guiding and fully expect it to take weeks or months before I get some command of the process.

To ask the question again, should I learn the hard way or are there shortcuts by throwing some money at the problem?

I would much rather be looking at the cosmos than messing about with kit.

Help and advice hugely appreciated.

Thanks,

Steve.

[shaunster]

You will need to autoguide any mount, no matter what the cost for long expsosures.. so just get a setup for your CGEM and you will be sorted, if your managing 60s unguided then your PA sounds OK so you shouldnt have problems getting much longer subs using a guided setup

[SteveKinder]

Thanks for the input. I seem to be getting that message consistently but there is a Greek guy on here, Aggelos I think his name is, who has an ASA mount and is getting 300 plus seconds unguided and his images are awesome. I am trying to speak to him directly but not succeeded yet.

In the mean time I will try and get the best I can from my CGEM and guiding. I can just feel it is going to be hard work though...

IS SCAG anywhere near Brighton? I will google it.

Cheers,

Steve.

[Helen]

Guiding isn't very hard when you actually get to do it, you just have to be methodical. I started using Maxim, and actually got it guide effectively on my first attempt. I'd recommend reading the Maxim manual/tutorials.

Helen

[dmahon]

You can spend a little bit of money on an autoguiding setup (£180 for a QHY5 camera, £0 for PHD software and £85 for an ST80*, plus some way of dual mounting it with rings or a side-by-side bar) and pretty much forget about doing any more to your current mount than you already do. I'm assuming you have a laptop to attach the QHY5 guidecam, if not you could consider one of the standalone guiders but they seem a little bit more finickerty.

If I can do it pretty much "out of the box" then it's easy.

* if weight is a concern, use a finderscope as a guidescope, with a special adapter from Modern Astronomy. Plenty of threads on that.

[SteveKinder]

Thanks for the words of comfort and encouragement, much appreciated.

Much of my 'negativity' comes from having the impression that accurately aligning a mount would be quick and easy and it wasn't. Easier now having done it a number of times of course. As my expectation is for problems this time hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised.

Helen - Oh to have a permanent set-up..... I intend getting there eventually and should be in a position to leave everything in place over July and August this year. Hallelujah!!

Clear skies in Ibiza willing I will be trying Guiding for the first time next weekend. I will let you know.

Yes I do have a laptop but intend trying a dedicated guider and scope first as I have already bought one.

Cheers,

Steve.

[Whippy]

I can only echo everyone's comments about guiding, I managed to get my guiding sorted with pretty much the same setup as dmahon's and had it working in about 10 minutes, PHD in particular makes it very simple. It's not an admission of defeat, more a little bit of technology makes imaging a great deal easier.

I think it's worth pointing out though that you'll still need to have your mount accurately polar aligned otherwise you're likely to get field rotation especially on longer exposures (5+ minutes).

Tony..

[ollypenrice]

Only the ASA is sold as working unguided. I live in a part of the world where a lot of astronomy goes on and a number of these mounts are in use. Their reputation is such that I removed them from my shortlist when shopping for a premium mount. Besides, they need ultra accurate polar alignment to work at all.

You will need to autoguide and this a learnable skill. Many packages make it almost self-managed. An ST80 makes a great guidescope, fast and so good at picking up stars without searching. About eighty quid from FLO.

If you are going to be a mobile imager then easy polar alignment is important and as of now one mount stands clear of the rest in this regard, the Takahashi. I have an EM200 and the polar alignment routine is incredible, fast and accurate. The mount looks like an EQ6 but is far more accurate unguided, about five times more accurate. However, on most occasions the resulting accuracy under guiding is only a little better than our budget mounts and sometimes the budget mounts win. The guided Tak is consistently more accurate, though, and at long focal lengths this would matter. Below a metre it doesn't, usually, make any difference. I would maybe give your mount a chance, first.

It might be worth waiting to see how the new Astrotrac GEM works out because their camera mount has won universal acclaim.

Another superb portable mount is the Astro Physics Mach One GoTo.

Olly

[Erwin Kats]

I just found this discussion.

@steve, i got an asa mount(ddm 85 ).

at a focal lenght of 800mm i get 1200 second frames unguided.

after lots of problems, the mount is working perfect now, but a permanent setup is required.

the polar alingment is very easy, but can only be perfectly done with ccd, maybe dslr also.

On the ASA yahoogroup you will find lots of information.

if you have any questions, just let me know.