Guide Scope Recommendations

[JohnH]

Hi all, I am looking for a guide scope to use with my VC200L, it will not be used for imaging and guiding will be with a Meade LPI/GuideDog. What I am looking for is small, light and not to many $$$ - what would you choose ?

[mick pinner]

hi John, the popular scopes seem to be either the Orion or Saxon ED 80 600mm, l had an Orion and now use a Zenithstar 80 480mm and would recommend either as great scopes around the $550.00- $600.00 mark, if that's too much then probably any of the Skywatcher short tube refractors would work well. ps, both the Orion and Zenithstar come with really good Crayford focusers.

[[1ponders]]

Hi John if your not going to image through it then just about any old small refractor will do. Try these from Bintel maybe

Orion ShortTube 80mm Refractor $445
Meade Series 5000 ED APO 80mm OTA $500

or some of these short tube options from Andews
http://www.andrewscom.com.au/site-section-10.htm

But if your going to spend that much you might as well spend a bit more and get a scope that is a recognised good quality imaging scope as in the Orion 80ED

There's a few choices anyway

[Striker]

Any little Acho would do...I suppose it would come down to weight as you dont want to overload the mount.

How much weight have you got to play with realisticly and how you going to mount the guide scope....whats the weight ratting for the mount...also take a few KG's of for Photography.

Are you in a dark site..if not you may want larger aperture short tube Acho to help with those dimmer guide stars.

Lots of choices.

[Robert_T]

Hi John - The zenithstar 80 (or orion express 80) are good quality and not too expensive and weigh in around 2kg. They might be considered "overkill" for simple guding, but probably not that much more than the alternatives - and you know sooner or later you'll want to flip between them and guide through the Vixen while taking some spectacular wide-field images through the "guidescope".


cheers,

[rumples riot]

Yeah the ED80 is a great scope, perfect for guiding and doing some wide field viewing also.

[33South]

The 127 is also shown at $500 but if you click either image it tells you $500 DEPOSIT :scared:to secure. I assume the A$ price is not yet known

Another comment the Express 80 is shorter but heavier than the ED80.

[h0ughy]

either the a ed80 or the orion express, I have the orion express. it is really compact and comes with its own case, so very portable

[[1ponders]]

That's a bit rude isn't it. :eyepop:I didn't click on the link. I did think that was exceptional/unbelievable value for an apo

[Striker]

127mm APO $1800 USD so about $2300 AUD

Still very well priced.

[ving]

most peeps seem to go for short tube 80mm rafractors of some sort...

[JohnH]

All, thanks for the wisdom folks, perhaps I should have been a little more specific about my needs. I am well aware of the benfits of the ED80 type scopes but I just cannot go to that just now. The problem is I would need a mounting plate, rings and the ED80 which will blow the (non-existant) budget, then I would also start to worry about weight....

My Sphinx mount can handle 10Kg (22lbs), it has the VC200L on top which weighs in at 6Kg, my photobits (Canon 20D) weighs approx 1 kg with the bits and bobs so I have 3 Kg to play with.

So I was thinking about a :

http://www.stellarvue.com/body_f50.html

But is 50mm enough light for the guide camera (a Meade LPI)? Or possibly I could go the OAG route:

http://www.taurus-tech.com/mini-tracker.htm#Telescope%20Adapters (http://www.taurus-tech.com/mini-tracker.htm#Telescope%20Adapters)

Anyone have anything good to say about OAGs or this unit in particular?

If I go for a small, light guide scope (as opposed the 50mm super finder) I will have to mount it to the piggyback position on the VC200, I have a small ALT/AZ gizmo that will allow me to point at a guidestar but, though it is robust, it would not handle more than 1Kg and less is better.

Budget is $300. All thoughts welcome....

[[1ponders]]

OK so the Orion etc are going to be a bit heavy by the time you get guiderings etc. That's a sweet looking finderscope that's for sure. Put a 2X or 3X barlow in there and it would probably work OK, especially if your going to autoguide. Might be a different story if you tried to manually guide off it.


OAG? Some people swear by them (Tornado33 uses one and loves it and does fantastic work with it) others don't like them at all. I'm in the second group. I think if your manually guiding they can work well. Trying to autoguide with one can be a pain in the butt trying to find a guidestar suitable for guiding on, this is why I don't like them.