SharpCap Forums

Good morning! I noticed the manual references 200mm fl for a guidescope in PA. Is there a minimum recommended fl for plate solving in SharpCap? I'm considering a William Optics Unigude 32 with a fl of 120mm @ f3.75. My imaging scope is an ED102 with 714mm fl. Is fl of 120mm sufficient for SharpCap? The 32mm saves me almost 10oz of weight.
Thanks
Rick

Hi Rick,

for polar alignment the 120mm guidescope will be fine. I've actually tested using a 50mm camera lens with a guide camera for polar alignment and had it working.

Of course when you actually guide you will have a little less accuracy due to the shorter focal length, but it sounds like that is a trade-off you are prepared to make in order to save weight. Certainly with a main scope of only ~700mm you should be fine (it might be a different story trying to guide a 2000mm FL SCT using a 120mm guide scope!)

cheers,

Robin

Thanks!! Much appreciated. My first experience with software guiding since original ST-4. Yes, I'm old