8se guiding

[kon1966 (Kon)]

Hi all, have 2 questions but one should be in the mobile section but there are not many posts in there. I do not want to use a pc but a android tablet. I also use celestron starsense which works a treat.

1) Is there a android app which can autoguide. I assume it would need to use bluetooth and I would need to buy a bluetooth receiver for the 8se.

2)Has anyone had any experience with nexguide and any other brands. I want to minimize cabling so hence these questions.

If anyone has successfully done this, can you let me know.

regards
Kon

[Amaranthus (Barry)]

The 8SE is on an alt-az mount. There is (no longer) any commercially available wedge for it, so if you don't have one already, you will get field rotation, and the autoguider won't be able to correct for this. The SE single arm fork mount also suffers from fairly significant backlash.

I love my 8SE for visual, but for astrophotography, it's really not up to the job. You need a GEM. I never used it for more than 30 sec unguided subexposures. Here is an example: http://www.astrobin.com/98885/

You can use the 8" SCT OTA with a GEM (I use the AZ-EQ6), and leave the SE mount for grab-n-go visual.