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The only way to tell is to test it out and see how it goes. You will likely find that your guiding behaviour varies from night to night because of stability (or lack thereof) in the atmosphere, without having touched the rig at all.
If you get nice round stars, then great!
It’s too easy to get caught up in guiding parameters that don’t necessary translate into a visible difference to the end result over time. That’s when you know your guiding is going OK and there are likely other things at play preventing you getting smaller stars, notably the seeing from the equation Lee quoted.
Of course, this assumes good and stable focus of your scope.
The effect of the odd lurch away from ideal is hard to quantify. If it only impacts, say, one frame in ten, then when you stack them the trace/trail in the duff frames will get rejected. But if it’s ruining every frame you probably want to tackle it sooner rather than later.
With the lube in these mounts...I typically swing it about a bit in both axes to ensure it moves smoothly (clutches disengaged) before reverting to the index position and locking up the clutches. Not sure how much it helps, but occasionally mine will inexplicably seem to get stuck, where in one axis it looks like it’s going for a long walk, then after a short while the motors overcome the stiction and it resumes normal service.
I also find that PHD sometimes has a mind of its own. It’s always good to check the guiding calibration data to ensure it’s not out of whack. After all, the software is trying to correct for mechanical unpredictability, and it’s not an exact algorithm...
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