Guidescope and guiding

[EzyStyles]

Hi Guys,

Got a question. If the guidescope isnt collimated properly, will that affect your guiding performance? or as long as its a bright guidestar, it doesnt really matter if it is focused or collimated?

cheers.

[seeker372011]

I use a 5 inch newt as my guidescope-probabaly a little bit out of collimation and never found that an issue..having said have never tried to guide when out of focus.....I always try to get a nice pinpoint star for guidedog to lock on to

dont know if this helps :)

[EzyStyles]

cheeers seeker. i was thinking .. the guiding software detects and centres bright objects. If the object is out of focus, wouldnt that makes it easier to track since the guidestar then will become bigger? *shrugs*

[Striker]

Eric,

If your guide star is out of focus then it wont show any small errors..not good when your using it for guiding...sometimes with bad seeing when your guide star is jumping around you can have it slightly out of focus to compensate the bad seeing but generaly a well focused star is optimal....I dont think collimation will make that much of a difference unless it's severely out.