Dual imagers.

[jenchris (Jennifer)]

I have two imaging scopes an ed100 and a meade 8" f10 acf.
I would like to mount them together and use one as a guider and one as an imager.
I would like to be able to use either for either.
Is it feasible?
Phd2 should allow me to slow down the f10 to give me usable guiding? I'm sure the ed100 would be fine?
Thanks for any input

[Mighty_oz (Marcus)]

Seeing as no-one has said anything, Yes it's possible, maybe you could even use a finderscope to use both at the same time ?
There are a few images here that use 2 scopes.
Hardest bit maybe would be the mount ?

Marcus.

[glend (Glen)]

When you say "slow down the f10", what exactly do you mean? F10 is pretty darn slow already. Are you talking about using a reducer to actually shorten the focal length, thus speeding up the scope? Are you imaging with the Meade on the NEQ6?

[RickS (Rick)]

It should work if you have a reasonably sensitive guide camera. You might need to hunt occasionally for a bright enough guide star with the f/10 system (this happens to me occasionally in less crowded parts of the sky when using an OAG at f/9.)

Cheers,
Rick.

[jenchris (Jennifer)]

I was a bit unclear there. By slow down I mean stopit shooting around because the magnification is too much.
I realised after that you set up phd with the scope parameters
Yes I am imaging on the neq6pro.
Should be fine with the weight.
I thought of using my usualguider which is an f5 102 sw and imaging with both . But I reckon I'd need to get complex with the setup in apt so it didn't dither etc.

[Atmos (Colin)]

Depending on the exposure lengths you're looking at you may run into some flexible issues. The refractor is going to cool quite differently to the SCT and it also will not be able to compensate for any mirror movement altitude changes during tracking.
Not saying it won't work but there will be some mechanical issues you'll need to be mindful of

[g__day (Matthew)]

Do able - my experience from doing this for several years - put either a OAG or ONAG on the SCT and guide from that as your principle guiding - only this will handle SCT mirror shift, flop and anything else causing differential flexure. Otherwise as a fall back use the smaller OTA to guide with when you can't find a guide star in the OAG on the main SCT.

I was pleased that the ZWO 120MM-S is a great guide camera in this set up.

[jenchris (Jennifer)]

Thanks for the tips.

[Terry B]

Jen.
I do similar all the time. The pic is a vixen VC200L and a C11 side by side with cameras on both. Admittedly one is a spectrograph but the principle is the same. I did have a 127mm APO mounted instead of the C11 and it worked well. I can guide with either scope.