Why no dedicated guidescopes?

[ollypenrice]

Come on, the optics industry, give us a dedicated guidescope. Here is my personal spec;

- 80mm F4 achromat. Horrible to look through but who cares?

- Long OTA so no possibility for using a star diagonal. (We don't want long wobbly drawtubes sticking miles out of the back.)

-No focuser! Not needed. Just give us a sliding drawtube that we pull out (snug fit please) and lock in position. We don't need super accurate focus on a guidescope and if there is no focus knob we won't accidentally twiddle it!!

-Mounted on a shoe that swivels a little to left or right but bolts down hard. At F4 we will almost always find a guide star and if we are unlucky we just swivel in one axis to find one. Cheaper and stiffer than rings and more robust and compact.

-If SW wanted to make an ST80 based version at f5 it would still get 9/10. The ST80 is great but has the potential for flexure because the tube is too short, being aimed at diagonal/prism users.

Olly

[Merlin66]

I dumped the focuser on the ST80 and replaced it with a TS 2" Crayford....that comes close to requirements (with a QHY5)

BTW I also have a old slide flip/ oag set up which sits nicely on the ST80 that way you have a visual 80mm finder, and flip to the guide camera....

(an old 135mm f2.8 lens and the DSI II also makes a great electronic finder)