manual guiding

[rolls05]

Howdy all. I'd just like to ask about manual guiding,which I see mentioned a bit here. Does it mean that while your camera is working ,you need to constantly adjust your mount. If so, what are you looking through, another scope?Must be a pain if you are taking many long exposures. I'm just collecting info for the old memory banks.Thank you.

[Larryp]

You would use a separate guide telescope piggybacked on your main scope, or an off-axis guider, which attaches to the focusser of your main scope and has a small prism which comes out at a right angle to the optical axis.
With either method, you use an illuminated reticle eyepiece, place your guide star on the crosshair and use your R.A. and Dec controls to keep the guide star centred on the crosshair

[rolls05]

Ah, i understand. seems awfully labour intensive. There'll be no sloping off for a cup of tea while you are taking pictures then. I dare say there wouldn't be too many folk doing it this way then. Thanks for that.

[Larryp]

Back when I was doing A/P, there were no autoguiders and no ccds-only hypered film. It was hard work sitting perfectly still, looking into a reticle eyepiece for an hour or more in freezing cold!

[rolls05]

Ha ha,, That's when they were bred tough. thanks laurie, I guess when I feel the need to start doing some serious ap,I'll be thinking of this conversation. In the meantime,basic widefield will do. Cheers.

[Rob_K]

LOL, I do it that way Larry although the thought of film fills me with horror! At least with digital output you see what you're getting straight away. Nothing like you & the reticle and the slow careful grind, out in the dark with frost on the ground! :D I use a reticle and an unmotorised EQ1 mount, pretty wobbly & hard to keep still. But I find it therapeutic, so rolls05 there's all sorts of ways of doing AP, you just have to find one that suits you. :thumbsup:

Cheers -

[Liz]

.... and Rob takes AMAZING images this way, capturing elusive comets, asteroids and nova. :thumbsup:

[Gem]

I did a couple of months of manual guiding. I imaged through an 80mm scope while manually guiding through a C9.25". Worked great - but you are right it isn't the the faint hearted. :)

[rolls05]

well it seems I can pick up a near new skywatcher goto mount (no scope) for next to nothing if I want it so I might have a play with that once I get a scope. From what I can gather here it's not terribly kosher for ap but it'll do for visual and get me going. Maybe do some short exposures to get the feel for it. Then later get a eq. Cheers fellas.