Guide scope mounting

[geobike]

Most people are using guide scopes instead of off axis guiders because so many more suitable guide stars are available. What would be a nice way of mounting the guide scope is with the front ring mounted to a pivot and the rear ring on a horizontaly and verticaly adjustable mount. This way you can center your object in main tube and adjust guide scope to find a good guide star. If you really want to go all out have the adjustable end motor driven in a search pattern until a guide star is found.

I can always dream

[dpanderson]

You can get manually adjustable rings at:
http://www.scopestuff.com/ss_rings.htm

I use these and it works great. I too have thought about motor driven adjustments on the rings, and even built up a prototype. It worked, but not very well. I am trying to think of better ways to implement the adjustment mechanism.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[tommy]

Depending on your guidescope and guide camera setup, you might be able to use the Orion X/Y guide star finder

http://www.telescope.com/control/astrop ... tar-finder

It's mechanical, like a standard focuser but one could build a automatic motor like the Orion AccuFocus to mount to the x and y knobs and control it via a simple computer program.

Just a thought. Instead of moving the whole guide scope within the mounting rings.

Tommy