[Eggmoon (Geoff)]

Hi all,

Looking at options for autoguiding... and all the info out there is quite overwhelming.

Now, first things first... I am not looking for "Worlds best practice" or anything like that. I am starting out taking astrophotos, and enjoying it, but I am not going to be spending a fortune upgrading all my gear to get magazine quality images... I just want to be able to get some passable stuff to show to my astro-illiterate friends.

I do want them to be be decent pics, and don't mind putting in the time acquairing and processing them, but I am a married man with three kids and a dog... so not going to be buying high end cameras with my small amount of spare cash, so the need for perfect autoguiding isnt there, and my scope is an 8" SCT, so not going to be looking at the very faintest and smallest objects.

Basically want something that just does the job well enough for my amatuer / enthusiast / dabbler status. Orion, Rosette, Andromeda, Horsehead, things like that are on my target list.

So... an off axis, or a seperate guidescope? Who wins?

Geoff.