Starlight Xpress Lodestar: My Guiding Star!

New Gear Alert: Starlight Xpress LodeStar Autoguider!

I just received my Starlight Xpress LodeStar autoguiding camera! I snagged it from Modern Astronomy in the UK. I’d definitely prefer to buy locally in France if I had the choice, but honestly, the price differences often force me to look abroad for most of my gear. For example, this little gem was almost 50% more expensive here than in Great Britain! I haven’t had a chance to test this beauty under the stars yet, but after countless online discussions and reviews, I’m not too worried. The camera is absolutely tiny and super lightweight, which just makes it even more appealing.

It’s going to find its home soon on a Celestron off-axis guider (OAG) – yep, ordered that from Germany, go figure! – and should let me autoguide at the prime focus of my C11, hopefully tackling those pesky primary mirror shift issues. Guiding a long-focal-length C11 with a parallel refractor is pretty much a pipe dream, thanks to differential flexure and the infamous mirror flop that all Schmidt-Cassegrain owners know all too well. My trusty little PL1M does a fantastic job at the focal plane of a fast refractor, but it’s just not sensitive enough to reliably find guide stars behind the C11, especially with an OAG that further reduces the camera’s visible field. The LodeStar should be the perfect solution to this.

I went with the LodeStar because, hands down, it’s one of the most sensitive autoguiding cameras out there right now. Like all Starlight Xpress cameras, it boasts a fantastic signal-to-noise ratio, and I can’t wait to slap it onto the C11! A quick indoor test with my little 80/400 refractor (literally, behind the window, pointing vaguely south) shows that even at 0.5s exposures, the LodeStar finds a plethora of stars perfect for guiding:

Full sky test in a few weeks, weather permitting, of course…