Lumicon Refractor Easy Guider

Anyone tried these out yet? I'm thinking of picking one up. It would save me the $$ of mounting a guidescope on my already taxed Vixen GP. I'll be shooting with my ST-237 through my TV-102.

I've posted this message on other threads. Hope it's o.k.

Dear Luis,

Just tried using it with my TEC980 F7 APO refractor and ST402XME. Focusing is coarse as you have to pull the autoguide CCD in and out.

When out of focus, even the off-axis star images from my F7 refractor show typical fan shape comas, but the star images improve a lot to become much round stars when the focus is sharp.

I am still trying to figure out how to achieve better focusing for the guiding CCD with the GEC. May be a helical focuser will be better but that will add back focus distance.

I am also considering to add a flip mirror unto the 1.25 EP end of GEC for more easy location of guide stars. Also add further back focus to the GEC.

Anyway, the weight of a separate guidescope can be dispensed with, a great bonus if you are already overloading the mount. My setup with separate guidescope and TEC140 plus camera etc are nearly 40 lbs on my Tak EM200 Temma 2.

The next question is whether it will be easy to find guide stars once you have located your imaging target. I have not tried it out, as the night when I tested the GEC was so foggy/hazy that I could only use 1-2 magnitude stars as guidestars. Given the high QE sensitivity of ST402, I believe that it will have no problem to guide on fainter magnitude guidestars if longer exposure time is used.

Raymond, Hong Kong.

I converted an old Anteres 90 degree finder scope as a guide scope. I simply removed the diagonal and put on a 2" extension and mounted the camera on the extension. I also got rid of the Televue ring and used 2 regular rings that I could place farther apart to give the scope more stability. The converted finder guide scope is adjustable so I have a wide choice of guide stars.
Ralph