James Paulson's roll off roof observatory at the Sunridge Observatory site, taken in the summer of 1986, housing a 10 inch f/5 Cave Astrola Newtonian reflector telescope



Friday, November 13, 2009

A Much Needed Accessory


These little multi-target red dot finders are one of the most useful items I have found. So far I have purchased two of them, one for my binocular mount, and one for my telescope. Using them to sight a guide star is very useful in the dark when a crosshair is invisible.

So tonight I came up with a great idea. Someone should build an adapter to allow mounting one of these on the accessory shoe of a camera. This would greatly assist in sighting the camera when fastening it piggyback style on a telescope, simply because using the optical camera sight is near impossible and it is an inconvenience to align it.

Other applications that could be developed for this base would include a replacement dovetail that would fit the base for both Meade and Celestron telescopes. I consider these little items to be among the most valuable convenience items one can have while working in the dark.

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