[avandonk]

Even though I use a GstarEX on my guidescope and can just turn up sensitivity to get a guidestar this is not always useful. If there is intermittent thin cloud around a faint guidestar is easily lost. If I then settle for a brighter guidestar I can lose the ideal framing of the object.

So I bought an Orion XY guidestar finder from Bintel. It works very well on the 90mm Mak. The action is smooth and there is no creep or drift after moving. The Mak has a focal length of 1250 mm and this is a fair bit longer than the usual 80mm or 100mm refractor used for guiding.

On two nights last week there was intermittent thin cloud and the guiding did not miss a beat. I use Guidemaster and dither between images. With a brighter guidestar and low integration setting 16 or 24 on the GstarEX there is no loss of guidestar while dithering and it takes less than 15 seconds to move and settle down to steady guiding

This means I can get more sleep with longer naps.

Bert