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Mark
First of all, I have only had this gear for a month of so, and the weather has been poor. As a result, I have only had a few opportunities to use it. But it does seem to work fine.
I live on the Gold Coast and do most of my viewing from the front yard. Light pollution is a real problem.
Depending on what I aim at, finding a guide star has not been a problem, BUT, I have only had the time to aim at some significant groups. I tried M42. Worked well. I had 4 or 5 suitable stars available to guide on.
I tried NGC5128. I had 3 suitable stars to guide on.
I tried NGC3372. I had 6 or so stars.
So I would say that I have had no problems finding a guide star.
Exposure time? No more than 2 seconds. Generally. I did go up to 4 seconds at one stage to see what happened.
My only concern I have had so far is focus. I initially found it a bit difficult to get the both cameras in focus. But I have found that PhD doesn't really require the guide camera to be in perfect focus. As long as the guide stars are "reasonably circular blobs" it guides okay.
Hope this helps.
Darrell
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