The off-axis guider offers your a simple method of autoguiding your telescope for astrophotography. There is no need to mount a guidescope, rather a guiding camera tracks stars which are deflected from the telescope's optical path close to the imaging camera's sensor.
An advantage of this method is that the guide stars are located within the area of sky close the astrocamera. So you track the stars which are next to your desired object and avoid errors caused by differential flexure and guidescope misalignment.
QHYCCD has developed a special off-axis guider (OAG) for the miniCAM8, which is equipped with a large 14×10 mm prism.
With the included M48 extension tube, the back focus can be adjusted to 55 millimetres. This combination of OAG and camera is compatible with most telescopes and correction optics!
The prism can be locked and unlocked to adjust it up or down. For guiding, a camera with a 1.25" barrel or 1.25" housing is required, whose image can be focused through the helical focuser.
With the OAG, the filter wheel and the active cooling of the camera, you have a complete, very compact system for astrophotography using colour and line filters.
