Mounting a Telrad

[JohnG]

Hi all

I have been trying to think of a way to mount the Telrad I have that has been un-used for a while. The William Optics ZS-80 has no finder and I really didn't want to pay for some el-cheapo finder that the naked eye does better at, also, I have yet to see the WO Red Dot finder that is supposed to fit.

So back to the Telrad. as we all know, they are bulky and sometimes difficult to fit to short tube refractors, minor things like the tube rings get in the way.

The tube rings I have are not the expensive ones but they do the job. On the top they have a tapped 1/4" hole for a standard camera mount, I removed the mounting bolt and using a piece of 40mm wide aluminium I drilled 2, 1/4" holes at the distance the rings are apart, cut off 2, 1/4 bolts so the don't protrude onto the OTA. I then placed the Telrad base onto the aluminium and marked the 2 holes, then drilled and tapped 2, 3/16" holes, cut off 2 gutter bolts and put the whole lot together. Less that an hours work.

I now have a finder that I can use with the ZS-80 and my old Telrad has a new lease of life. See attached pictures.

JohnG

[Merlin66]

I just used a couple of bits of velcro!! Easy to remove etc.

[Hammerman]

Pretty cool idea, John! How about adding one more photo.... one with the Telrad and rings attached to the scope, set up and ready to go?

I've still got a tempoary attachment to my refractor with the Telrad. The reflector was an easy choice, but not so much on smaller scopes.

[JohnG]

G'Day Hammerman

Pictures as requested. I deliberately placed the tube rings that far apart so it holds the dewshield in the extended position, I noticed when it started to cool off the dewshield tended to slide down when the scope was vertical.

Tried velcro but it didn't work, the tube is too short and with rings there was not enough area to grip on, this way my alignment stay's intact.

JohnG

[Hammerman]

Fantastic! Thanks for posting the photo. Now I know that I want to do this for my 100ED.

Question for you John. After I build one for myself, would you mind if I posted how I built it, and a couple of my own photos of the finished project with my scope, on my astronomy web site as long as I credited you as the man who came up with the design?

[JohnG]

No problem as far as I am concerned, I am sure other people have thought up similar solutions.

JohnG

[Hammerman]

Thanks again, John. I built the mounting plate over the weekend. It works great! I also added the plan on my website. Take a look at the page for projects on my site (which is where the link will take you, not to my homepage), then click on the individual project and take a quick look at that page too.

If there is anything you would like me to change, add, remove, etc. with anything on these two pages about your project, let me know. After all it was your idea to begin with. Also, if you wish I would gladly add your last name too instead of just the initial, but that's your choice.

The link is here: http://home.comcast.net/~astrohammer/build.htm (http://home.comcast.net/%7Eastrohammer/build.htm)