The Orion StarShoot 32mm Mini Guide Scope was designed for accurate guiding of any relatively short focal length, optically fast imaging telescope. It weighs in at only 9 oz. and is just 5.7″ long helping keep excess weight off of your astrophotography setup, which is always a good thing
The Orion StarShoot 32mm Mini Guide Scope features a 32mm doublet objective lens with a focal length of 122mm (f/3.8). This will provide a very wide field of view with your guide camera, which means there will be plenty of stars for your guiding software to lock onto and accurately track.
The dovetail base slides into most all Orion brand telescope finder shoes and locks securely in place. The 6-point ring adjustment screws allow independent adjustment of the guide scope aim, but with today’s sensitive autoguiders, it’s doubtful you’ll ever have to touch those screws. Focus is achieved by threading the objective lens cell forward and back and then locking down the threaded collar which will preserve the focus from session to session.
There are two camera/visual back adapters included with the Orion StarShoot 32mm Mini Guide Scope. First, a standard 1.25″ female visual back with a brass compression ring so you can slip any autoguider with a 1.25″ nosepiece into the guide scope. Or if your guide scope has female t-threads, you can thread it directly onto the end of this adapter for a super secure fit. Orion also includes a c-mount adapter in case you own a guide scope such as their StarShoot Mini cameras. Simply unscrew the 1.25″ adapter, replace with the c-mount adapter, and thread your c-mount camera on for a solid flex-free fit.
The Orion StarShoot 32mm Mini Guide Scope has a maximum back focus of ~24mm from the base of the t/c threads, which should help determine if your own guide camera will be compatible with the StarShoot Mini 32mm Guide Scope. The front objective lens threads forward another 13mm, so as long as the camera you want to use has a back focus of between 11mm and 24mm, it should come to focus.
As the Orion team notes, “This is truly “set-it-and-forget-it” guide scope! Just attach your guide camera and focus it the first evening. Focus shouldn’t change between nights, and with such a large field of view you’ll never have to hunt for another guide star again!”
You can learn more about The Orion StarShoot 32mm Mini Guide Scope here.
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