guide camera recommendations?

[FarmerBen]

Hi All, I'm looking at getting a guide camera and was wondering what people are using and recommend.

The only real requirement is that it must work with OSX and my macbook.
I haven't settled on a guide scope yet but the camera will need to switch between my LX200gps and whatever other scope I get for guiding/widefield imaging.

The StarShoot Autoguider looks to do the job but the doco says only supported on Windows. Is anyone using this camera on OS X and if so what software are you using?

Is that sufficient information?

TIA,
Ben.

[iceman]

hmm I'm not sure about the starshoot, Ben.

I know the DMK series work on a Mac, and make a great guide camera too. They're also not bad as planetary/lunar imagers as well :)

[gbeal]

Mike is correct and if you ever want a dual purpose unit it would be the way to go.
From someone who (cos I am miserable) pissed about with a non-modified ToUcam for years, the StarShoot (mine is a QHY5, but essentially the same thing) is hard to beat.
In my case I use it with maxim, so this means unless you boot windows in your Mac then it is out. I believe Nebulosity works with Mac though, so look there.
Gary

[FarmerBen]

Thanks Mike, what software do you use the DMK with?
Cheers,
Ben.

[iceman]

Ben, for guiding I use PHD.

[gregbradley]

The Fishcamp Engineering Starfish camera is good. It is a 1.3mp CMOS chipped camera with a buffer (for faster downloads) and works in USB2.0.

It will do .5 second guide exposures which is realy fast.

I have one for sale if you are interested. Mine is the cooled version and is also useful for planetary imaging.

$725.

Its one of the hottest guide cameras around and compares more to an SBig ST402ME.

It is powered off the USB cable only unless you want the cooler going which requires a 12V transformer.

Greg.

[FarmerBen]

thanks Greg, I'll check them out.
Cheers,
Ben.