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Guiding at 1000mm Fl


Bottletopburly

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So been thinking I use a qhy mini guidescope 30mm 130mm fl to guide both my 350mm refractor and my 1000mmfl reflector with a qhy290mm guide cam now for the 1000mm fl  which for the 1000mm is out of the rule of thumb of one third your focal length,would I be better using a guidescope with a 400mm fl and leave the mini guide scope for the 350mm fl refractor , what does the more experienced think 🤔.

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If it is any help I have had good results in the past using a 9 x 50 finder scope for guiding  with the 10 inch Meade 

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15 minutes ago, Graham said:

If it is any help I have had good results in the past using a 9 x 50 finder scope for guiding  with the 10 inch Meade 

Am I right in assuming graham the fl is 450mm for that  I’ve spotted a guidescope s/h and got Xmas money burning a hole in my pocket 😆 

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4 minutes ago, Graham said:

Sounds about right to me David.

I have also used it to guide the RC 

hmm I may take a punt on this one as it’s not too far from me 

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You will need an adapter so your camera can replace the ep on the finder scope but these are readily available online. 

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@GrahamNot this one graham it’s a dedicated guide camera I sold my finder years ago when I sold my 200p takes a 1.25 camera 

Edited by Bottletopburly
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Even better then Dave.

I found one benefit using mine was you can use the set up as a remote finder scope as well as a guide scope.

Saves having to go out to the scope to look through the finder  

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1 hour ago, Graham said:

 

Even better then Dave.

I found one benefit using mine was you can use the set up as a remote finder scope as well as a guide scope.

Saves having to go out to the scope to look through the finder  

I haven’t used a finder in years graham, thanks to platesolving and APT GOTO++ function 

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I've had no issues guiding 1200mm fl with a 180mm finder guider in the past, so I wouldn't stress too much about the 1/3 fl rule, David.

 

Just ensure the guider is securely mounted.

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1 hour ago, 8472 said:

I've had no issues guiding 1200mm fl with a 180mm finder guider in the past, so I wouldn't stress too much about the 1/3 fl rule, David.

 

Just ensure the guider is securely mounted.

Thanks Kev , though just picked up a used 70 mm guidescope 😆 

@Graham

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Edited by Bottletopburly
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  • 5 months later...

I use an Altair 50mm/206mm fl guide scope with my 560mm refrector and 1370mm reflector and have really good results. However - I do use multi-star guiding in PHD2 and I am sure this is the key for me even with the long focal length. The wide field of the guide scope enables PHD2 to look at lots of stars and it makes sense (to me) that this would enable a smoother guiding experience.
 

Hope this sheds some (red) light 🙂

 

Matthew

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1 hour ago, Matthew said:

I use an Altair 50mm/206mm fl guide scope with my 560mm refrector and 1370mm reflector and have really good results. However - I do use multi-star guiding in PHD2 and I am sure this is the key for me even with the long focal length. The wide field of the guide scope enables PHD2 to look at lots of stars and it makes sense (to me) that this would enable a smoother guiding experience.
 

Hope this sheds some (red) light 🙂

 

Matthew

 Yes I use multi star and it does certainly help , in using the 400mm fl guide scope on my 200pds and the 130mm guide scope on my 350mm fl refractor 

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