Meet My New Guide Scope!

A Guidescope Upgrade That’s a Game Changer

Lately, my biggest headache has been finding a bright enough guide star in the tiny field of view of my 50mm guidescope to allow for guiding exposures under 3-4 seconds. My PL1M autoguiding camera is super sensitive, but it was really being held back by a guidescope that just wasn’t up to snuff. So, I decided to pull the trigger and invest €130 in an Orion Shortube 80mm (400mm focal length) guidescope.

Once it was all mounted up on the C11, cozying up next to the C80ED, and everything was nicely collimated and balanced, I ran a quick test… And wow, it was impressive! I managed to find dozens of guide stars in the camera’s field of view, all visible under 1 second. Alright, alright, it was just a quick test, but still, super promising! Next up, I’ll need to really put it through its paces on something like M51 (finding a guide star there used to be a real pain).

Here’s a peek at the new addition: