CG-4 Polar Alignment & Autoguiding Options Celestron Omni CG-4 · EvanSpiesTheHeavens · ... · 1 · 92 · 2

EvanSpiesTheHeavens 0.00
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Hello,

I am very new to the hobby and currently have a Celestron CG-4 mount. I have started to get curious about if there is any way to autoguide with this mount despite it being kinda low-end. I briefly did a little bit of googling and it seems like there are a few potential options out there for this; some seem more complicated than others. I have not looked into any of the options too deeply yet, but I was wondering if anyone out there happens to have experience with modding a CG-4 for autoguiding and if so, what is the easiest, most effective option? I know someone is going to be tempted to tell me to just get a better mount but right now that just really is not an option; I have to make due with what I got and I am just trying to see what potential paths I might be able to take.

Also, I am wondering if anyone has any experience with the CG-4's polar alignment scope and if it is really as difficult to work with as the reviews make it sound. Currently I just get a very rough polar alignment using the finder scope on my OTA, but obviously this method is very inaccurate and so I only get about 15-25 seconds of exposure time before the stars noticeably trail. If the alignment scope really is as much of a pain as people make it sound I don't know if I really want to spend money on it. That being said, is there any way to at least somewhat improve alignment using the finder scope? I know obviously Polaris is not supposed to be perfectly centered so is there a method or technique or whatever that I could use to get closer to where I should be pointing just by looking through the finder and the OTA? Obviously if I find out the alignment scope really isn't that bad I will just drop the money on it. Just looking for options.

Thank you for any assistance,

EvanSpiesTheHeavens
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toygar_113 0.00
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I built controller with Arduino mega which runs astroeq software. It connects to the computer with with USB cable and works with eqmod driver. You can also platesolve.
https://www.astroeq.co.uk/

If you don't want to built everything yourself I've seen some onstep upgrade kits on AliExpress.

As for polar alignment, I tried NINA three star polar alignment but huge backlash in dec don't allow very accurate results so I'm using PHD2 drift alignment now.

20211227_205751.jpg20240105_175027.jpg
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