Electronic Viewfinders

[MRJ (Matt)]

Has anyone had much luck using a finderscope and camera with plate solving for accurate gotos? The main issues I can see are alignment and eye adaptation. I tried this last night with a small 32mm finder and an old SSAG camera - it worked better than expected.

[Dave882 (David)]

Yes I do this regularly with my big rig (c14 riding on an eq8) and utilise the ASIAIR to do the platesolving through a small guide scope. Once the scopes are aligned it is very accurate. I use this for visual sessions as well as imaging if I’m at the native focal length. It’s extremely useful when you’re hunting down faint objects operating with a very small fov on the main scope. Only thing is the ASIAIR doesn’t seem to work for alt-az setups but there are other systems out there that would be good for that.

[MRJ (Matt)]

Originally Posted by Dave882

Yes I do this regularly with my big rig (c14 riding on an eq8) and utilise the ASIAIR to do the platesolving through a small guide scope. Once the scopes are aligned it is very accurate. I use this for visual sessions as well as imaging if I’m at the native focal length. It’s extremely useful when you’re hunting down faint objects operating with a very small fov on the main scope. Only thing is the ASIAIR doesn’t seem to work for alt-az setups but there are other systems out there that would be good for that.

Thank you it is good to know the high accuracy. My hope is that it will be more accurate than the standard goto. I prefer altaz for visual. In my test I used Stellarmate running on a RPI4 which supports AZ mode in the SW AZGTi.

[MRJ (Matt)]

I found this video showing the use of an electronic viewfinder in an alt-az setup for visual use.

https://youtu.be/ITUMc8ALyMA?si=q01DG8MQK0ZqN90L

[MRJ (Matt)]

As part of my downsizing, I now have a ZWO AM5 mount with Asiair Plus. I have used the AM5 in AZ mode with an ASI 678 and an Askar 32mm f4 guidescope as an electronic viewfinder – plate solving works very well once aligned to the main telescope. I am experimenting with small levelling and rotating plates to help fine tune the alignment.