Electronic Viewfinders

[MRJ]

Has anyone had much luck using a finderscope and camera with plate solving for accurate gotos? The main issues I can see are alignment and eye adaptation. I tried this last night with a small 32mm finder and an old SSAG camera - it worked better than expected.

[Dave882]

Yes I do this regularly with my big rig (c14 riding on an eq8) and utilise the ASIAIR to do the platesolving through a small guide scope. Once the scopes are aligned it is very accurate. I use this for visual sessions as well as imaging if I’m at the native focal length. It’s extremely useful when you’re hunting down faint objects operating with a very small fov on the main scope. Only thing is the ASIAIR doesn’t seem to work for alt-az setups but there are other systems out there that would be good for that.

[MRJ]

Thank you it is good to know the high accuracy. My hope is that it will be more accurate than the standard goto. I prefer altaz for visual. In my test I used Stellarmate running on a RPI4 which supports AZ mode in the SW AZGTi.

[MRJ]

I found this video showing the use of an electronic viewfinder in an alt-az setup for visual use.

https://youtu.be/ITUMc8ALyMA?si=q01DG8MQK0ZqN90L

[MRJ]

As part of my downsizing, I now have a ZWO AM5 mount with Asiair Plus. I have used the AM5 in AZ mode with an ASI 678 and an Askar 32mm f4 guidescope as an electronic viewfinder – plate solving works very well once aligned to the main telescope. I am experimenting with small levelling and rotating plates to help fine tune the alignment.