Consumer Grade AO - a world of pain?

[JohnH]

I must admit to being attracted to this technology - it sounds appealing but on further study I find that AO does not seem to be used much by amateur AP types. I was hoping it could help improve imaging under semi-urban seeing conditions but I am not sure it really can.

Guiding at 10Hz will require a very sensitive guide cam/chip and/or a very bright guide star. I am thinking of the Orion Steadystar or Starlight Xpress units in particular - anyone have hands on with either of these?

Any advice or feedback welcomed!

[rat156]

Hi John,

I use an AO7 on my SBig setup. Whilst not exactly what your looking at, I can comment on the general usefulness of this type of equipment.

Guiding at 10Hz requires a very bright star. In order to get to 4Hz region I need a mag 8 or so guide star, mag 7 would be better. That said, the main reason I want to use the AOL etc is for guiding whilst doing narrowband images. I realise I can just use the OAG, but the AO helps to smooth out the seeing and not have the mount bump guide a lot.

In short, I love the AOL, perfect guiding on a Losmandy G11 for up to 30 minute exposures is great.

Cheers
Stuart