Omegon off-axis guider with micro-focusing - for successful astronomy photos without a guide scope
Why it is sometimes better to take pictures with an off-axis guider
With an off-axis guider, perfect astrophotography is virtually in your grasp. Long exposure photos require precise tracking, which is the specialty of this guider, making it one of the necessary tools for astrophotography. You will soon have the most beautiful astronomy photos in the bag!
The advantages in a nutshell:
- lets you take beautiful astronomy photos with round stars
- for refractors, SCs, MAKs and RC telescopes
- off-axis guider only 24mm in overall length - very compact
- robust yet light - weighs only 180 grams
- 45mm optical transmission - full illumination, even with large chips
- micro-focusing - especially smooth helical focusing with 0.05mm accuracy
- 75mm of back focus
An off-axis guider is a brilliant invention. This device sits in the 2-inch focuser in front of the camera. A small prism directs a little light from the telescope into a separate tube - where your guide camera or crosshair eyepiece is attached. This makes it possible to instantly correcting any tracking errors during the extended period over which your camera is exposing the image - for perfectly round stars!
The connections
Easy to adapt - the Omegon off-axis guider has an M48 thread on the telescope side and an additional socket for 2 inch eyepieces. The accessory has three screws and a flat M48 adapter for connecting your camera. The advantage - you can rotate your camera at any time and find the optimum orientation for the astronomical object you are exposing.
Exact micro-focusing with 10mm travel - for auto-guider or crosshair eyepiece
A small prism directs light into the control unit of your guider- into a 1.25-inch helical focuser. Now insert your auto-guider (an automatic tracking camera) or a crosshair eyepiece. With the generous 10mm of travel allows you will find the optimum sharpness for your guide star. Impressive - this special helical focuser can be adjusted to 0.05mm using the super fine scale. So you can always find the precise focus point very quickly.
Guide scope or off-axis guider?
For many, this is a matter of preference. But there is actually more to it than that. For longer exposures, the movement of the guide scope and telescope optics can be minimized - especially with mirror telescopes. An off-axis guider elegantly solves this task - as there is only one beam path and therefore no offset involved.
Our expert comment:
In order to be able to focus a guide camera, some extension tubes must be employed between the off-axis guider and the object camera. Which, and how many, tubes are needed depends on the flange focal distance of the guide camera and on the flange focal distance of the object camera.
Here is an example: With one 28mm and two 14mm there is nearly always a solution, see http://www.astroshop.de/teleskop-zubehoer/adapter/15_37?q=finetuning
There are solutions from the M48 to bayonet for Canon and Nikon DSLRs, see -
