On 3/23/11, Debbie <astrodeb@beyondbb.com> wrote:
There is an article in the April issue of Sky and Telescope on the Celestron NextGuide. It's a good deal for the money but one of the things they didn't like is that it won't give you a warning if it loses the guidestar.
Neither did my old Astro-Physics autoguiders from 25 years ago (pre-digital), but it was a helluva nice thing to have if you're exposing more than five minutes (about my comfort limit for high-powered manual guiding). If you check the monitor, you can see the guidestar drift if it starts to lose it. But yeah, you can't nap while using it, and it won't clean your windows either. If you've chosen your guidestar wisely and are reasonably polar aligned, it won't drift (make sure it's bright enough). If it loses it because of clouds, you've lost the image anyway. I can guide with up to a C-6, so I have plenty of aperture to throw on the chip. I'm determined to not carry a computer into the field, and this is my ticket if I want to image. UPS says it will be here next Wednesday. :o)