I use a 8" Celestron S.C for astrophotography and I have found that prime focus is what you will usually be using for long exposures of deep sky objects and you will only be using a tele-extender for planetary, moon, sunspots, comets ect.. One thing to remember is that to keep minor corrections from not showing up on the final print is to have your guiding system be at least 3X over the power that you are using to photograph the subject with, that way any corrections are too small to be noticed on the final. If you were to close the shutter to make a correction you would probably never be able to get aligned on the subject correctly again. Be prepared to burn up a lot of film in the begining, I always felt good if 3 or 4 photos turned out on each roll of film. Good luck and clear sky :>) : Hi everybody!

: My questions are about astrophotography, mainly in relation to the equipment. I'm planning on buying an 8" LX10 and obviously the off-axis guider is a must-have if you're planning to do any astrphpoto work. But doesn't that limit you to prime focus photography? I wanted to do eyepiece projection phtots as well, but from what I understand from the Meade catalog you can't hook the variable tele-extender or the variable projection camera adapter to the off-axis guider. And the T-Mount? I have a T-Ring for my Cannon. I thought the threads on T-Rings were standard and I could just screw it directly onto the off-axis guider.

: On another point: Don't minor guideing corrections show up on the film later? Don't you have to close the shutter to make corrections?

: Thanks! : Luis Esetevs : luis.esteves@mailroom.com