Miniguide scopes , anygood?

[5ash]

Any practical feed back on how well these work. Flexure, finding stars etc.
Regards philip

[LewisM]

If you mean the stock-standard in the finder holder type, I rate them average.

If you take one and further modify and improve, then I rate them excellent. I get 20 and 30 minute subs out of my system using one without any difficulty. ZERO flex (solid rings, threaded connections), and I get as many guidestars as I want using a Lodestar.

I modified a standard finder by custom solid rings (the tube is held by a VERY thin layer of felt and 6 grub screws), a custom non-rotating helical focuser, and a Prostar mini vixen clamp. As I mentioned, ZERO flex, any guidestar, focusable, detachable and light. Never had any issue with 20 or 30 minute exposures. Plus I painted mine to match :)

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/attachment_browse.php?a=182137

[5ash]

I was looking at the Orion type 50 mm miniguiders or even the Orion 70mm giant finderscope.
Philip

[troypiggo]

Been using one on my 506mm FL refractor and 1200mm FL reflector. Works a treat. Never had issue finding guide star with QHY5 mono cam.

[gbeal]

My choice, after years of DIY.
http://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/shop/finder-and-guider-scope/
Gary

[Eden]

I have the Orion 70mm finder/guider. A brief summary of my experience with this:

-- It makes a much better finder than it does a guider. The field of view is generous but the optics do suffer from noticeable chromatic abberation
-- A star diagonal or 1.25" extension tube is needed in order to be able to achieve focus, unfortunately the supplied thumb screw does a poor job of securing eyepieces or diagonals and ideally you'd want to drill out the hole and replace it with something a bit more robust
-- The t-thread is a nice feature, but if you plan on trying to get focus using t-thread extension alone, the additional weight is almost guaranteed to cause flex
-- The helical focuser is something best adjusted during daylight hours
-- No dew shield

[DavidLJ]

A thumbs up for the Orion Mini Autoguider package (50mm Miniguider + Starshoot Autoguider). It sits firmly in its supplied Vixen-type shoe. Never noticed any flexure no matter how the OTA is oriented. With PHD2 at 3 secs exposure it always finds plenty of guide stars to choose from (I usually select a star mid-way between the brightest and the dimmest). My imaging results invariably show nice round stars. OK, because I'm using a f/4 Newt with a consequent wide imaging FOV and small magnification my demands on the guider are not very demanding but if your own imaging setup is comparable I can't really see why you would want to lash out on more expensive auto guiding gear. It just works. Every time.