Imaging rig now with guidescope

[Zakalwe]

Seeing as how there seems to be wall-to-wall cloud cover, I thought that I would have a go at setting up for guiding.

A little while ago I bought a very second hand ED80 off a chap from this here parish. It was a bit scruffy as he had painted it, but it looked a bit rough, so I decided to spruce it up. I stripped it down, and stripped the paint off. Gave it a bit of a sanding, primed it and gave it a coat of matt black.

After a purchase of a side-by-side dual mount off Astro Buy and Sell, i had a bash at mounting it all up. This is the result.

I have bunged a modified Lifecam in the guidescope...a few questions if I may:

1) Will the ED80 make a suitable guidescope?

2) Will the Lifecam be suitable for a guidecam? Or should I get something like a QHY? I have downloaded Metaguide, so am now off to have a play with that.

3) Will i need guide-rings to allow the guidescope to be moved about?

Thanks in advance for any help offered.

[RogerTheDodger]

heh, turn it into binoculars...

[Zakalwe]

heh, turn it into binoculars...

LOL...I was daydreaming today and that thought crossed my mind!!!

[Psychobilly]

if the guidecam is sensitive enough then its unlikley that you will have to move the guidescope to find a guidestar. I use a DSI Ic on a 500mm f8 lens at never had a problem to date...

The ED80 will make a mighty fine guidescope ... but is also a cracking imaging scope so you could always go down the finder guider route... and have 2 imaging scopes running...

Billy...

[dlp]

Nice! Just for info, the QHY5 software doesn't work with MetaGuide, more's the pity!

David

[Zakalwe]

Just purchased a QHY5 guidecam from modern Astronomy. The chap (Bernard) also recommended using a finder as a guidescope, and using the ED80 to image (using a field flattener).

This does appeal to me, as I could collect twice as much data in one session (and we all know how few and far between decent nights are at the moment......).

The flip side is that I would need another camera and flattener. ohh, and the focuser on the ED80 is a bit rubbish ....Arrggghhh more money:BangHead:

[Zakalwe]

An update on the kit, and current state of play.

The DSLR has been replaced with a QHY8L OSC camera, which seems to be a great piece of kit.

The finder cam has now been mated to a SW finderscope, and mounted in some rings, freeing up the ED80. I tested it the other night, and it was bang on. It happily guided all night long, and to be honest, I don't think it needs rings as it seems sensitive enough to find a star without moving it.

As the ED80 is now free, I am toying with idea of what to hang off it. Another OSC is likely, but probably a smaller chipped camera to give a different FOV. Or I might go mono... decisions, decisions...

[Viv]

Very nice