My experience with?SCT's and guide scopes is as follows.....
I have a C14-f5.5? and a 50mm guide scope/finder scope mounted directly to the telescope all on a AP1200 mount.?
I'm imaging with a SBIG ST8xme using a Remote guide head in the aforementioned guide scope and my control software is CCDSoft v5 and The Sky 6 pro.?
When calibrating the guider, I place a bright star in the center of the guider's field and calibrate for 45 seconds.?
The guiders fov is huge! Then I go to my target image and after choosing a guide star I begin my imaging. All my guiding is lower sub pixel even with 15-20 minute subs. and as long as I'm 25 degrees or so above the horizon, I rarely need to calibrate.?
Now about that pesky mirror flop! Yes, I have it. But unless I cross the Meridian, it doesn't happen! But if it did I'll lose one sub exposure while the guider catches up.
Another big plus is finding a guide star is so easy my pet Yorkie can do it. Not to mention problems from filters in the imager. Plus I can frame my image perfectly while the orientation of my guider stay the same.
By mounting such a short guide scope firmly to the telescope, the flexure problem is undetectable in my images.?
Many newer imagers have built in guide chips in front of their main chips but they still can have trouble finding a guide star while try to frame the main image.
I've had the OAG's and long focal length guide scopes and never got them to perform as well as my setup.?
My two cents,?
Bob?
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