Piggybacking Camera to current scope setup for widefield

[Spookyer (Brett)]

Hi there
Some advice please on how best to do this.
I am looking at doing some widefield work using my Nikon Z camera and camera lenses. I want to mount my camera onto the top plate of my scope. This way I can take it on and off without having to remove my usual setup off the mount.
Physically I plan on bolting a heavy duty ballhead to the top plate and clamping in my camera. That should be solid. I will be using lenses between 14-200mm so nothing super heavy or long.

I am mostly concerned about how I manage the imaging run. I wasn’t planning to image through the main scope and my ZWO camera at the same time, though was going to use my scope setup to guide if required.
I am using NINA which does apparently allow multiple instances to run if required and I have confirmed that the Nikon will connect through NINA but haven’t fully tested it yet.
I will have to do things like focusing manually but am happy to automate what I can.
I can think of several ways of attempting this and I don’t want to overcomplicate it.
I can just connect to the scope as usual, find the target and then manually fire away with the camera, allowing the mount to do its thing
Or I could connect as usual, get on target area and then in another instance of NINA use the sequencer to control the Nikon

Any better ideas?

How do I handle multi night shooting on a target? After framing my shot with the Nikon I then take an image through the scope and save it so I can platesolve that later and put me back on target the next night, assuming I haven’t moved the ballhead orientation between nights?

How would I do mosaics in an automated way?

If anyone is doing the above and thought these problems through your experience and advice would be very welcome.

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Brett, I’ve found that trying to secure the camera to the mount/scope using the screw thread on the bottom of the camera to be unreliable.

I tend to use a set of guide scope rings to secure the lens, and then just use the lens mount to hold the camera body. There are usually several positions along a lens that don’t move during focusing or zooming, you just have to identify the spots there.

The advantage IMO to this method is that if you attempt to align with the main scope (aka guide scope!) then it’s easier to adjust the pointing of the camera+lens this way.

I’ve not attempted mosaics in anything more than a crude way, so can’t really suggest anything useful there.

[Spookyer (Brett)]

Thanks Duncan.