Askar FMA180 as a guider

Yes, I don’t need the flat field and I will get a longer focal length. But then the scope will be slower, at F5.5, instead of F4.4 . Do you think F5.5 is fast enough for a guidescope?

I use it with the reducer and it is one of my best guide scopes. I think it would be also fine without the reducer if you needed to use that that way.

For a second I read "Askar FMA180 as a guitar". Lol, what's wrong with me. 

Well, I think it’s to small to use it as a guitar, but I will try that tonight. What songs do you recommend? 😃

Yes I use FMA180 (no reducer) + 174mini for 130PHQ guiding. pinpoint sharp guiding star.
https://www.astrobin.com/tqg18l/B/

Nick Grundy:
the image looks great, but I'd be a little worried about the guiding scale. the FMA180+ASI174mm is about 6-7"/pixel, whereas your 130PHQ+ASI2600 is about .8"/pixel

You must be getting great alignment at the beginning of the night

Hi PHD2 will guide at 'subpixel' (center of luminosity weights, can go to 1/10 pixel or less, also PHD2 looks multiple stars) accuracy,
so I think 6-7"/10=0.6-0.7" is good enough for 130PHQ. I expect peak resolution of 130PHQ is around 1.8 arcsec FWHM.
Polar Alignment is done by ASIAir, can be less than 10 arcsec... according to ASIAir.

Here is another Askar FMA guider accuracy (AM5, 80PHQ, FMA135 + 290mini, almost on Zenith, clear and calm night) example. sure??

I use an FMA180 with the reducer and an ASI174M mini as a guide scope for my Hyperstar on a C8. The image scale is close enough but with the Hyperstar at fl 390mm, there's not a great deal of guiding required.

At F10 I use an off axis guider, but if I want to find planets, I can plate solve with the FMA180 and find them in a very limited FOV in the C8.

For a third purpose, as mentioned here before, I can guide with the OAG and grab wide field DSO with the FMA180 at the same time.

Three in one is not bad. I have it with the Deep Sky Dad autofocuser which works well but does add weight.

Also, if you want to align both scopes the stock tube rings that came with mine didn't allow for this but I bought after market ones here

https://www.365astronomy.com/askar-55mm-guide-rings-for-fma180-and-other-guidescopes-36mm-to-50mm-1-pair?path=111_129_463

Yeah, works very well.  I was getting between .3 to .6 total error with my Askar FMA 180 Pro and ASI120 Mini guiding setup on my AM5 last friday night.

Willem Jan Drijfhout:
Yes, I am using the FMA180 with ASI290MM as guidescope. Both in combination with a Mewlon180+reducer/flattner (1760mm) and an FS-60CB (370mm). In both cases I'm using the reducer on the FMA180. 
As a guidescope it worked well in both situations. I've had guiding issues with the Mewlon, but this was related to an issue with the mount, not the guidescope. But good point about leaving out the reducer for the longer FL scopes.
https://www.astroworldcreations.com/image-details/m3

Thanks, did you use the FMA180 with the reducer?

Rafael Sampaio:
Thanks! Did you use ASIAIR ? If so, may you share your guiding parameters, and calibration steps?

Yes, using the ASIAIR Plus.

AM5
------
PA ~50 arc seconds of error in both RA and DEC.
Guide Rate - 0.5 x Sidereal

ASI120
----------
Exposure - 1s
Gain - High 
Darks -  Disabled
Dithering - Disabled
Calibration Step - 1146ms
RA Max - 150ms
Dec Max - 150ms
Dec Aggression - 35%
RA Aggression - 35%