To black or not to black, that is the question

[LewisM]

Had a mate turn a solid aluminium adaptor for me so that I can mount my autoguider with 1.25" nosepice onto my old Meade (Tasco) 60mm refractor (that has 0.965 drawtube etc). All I needed was some 1" aluminium tube so I could achieve focus.

Anyway, for guiding, is it beneficial to blacken the inside of the drawtube etc to minimise reflections, or not matter so much?

[Terry B]

I have always sprayed the inside of adaptors that I have made with flat black paint. It's simple to do and does reduce reflections. Probably anodising would be better but I don't have access to this easily and black spray paint is cheap.
Terry

[brian nordstrom]

:thumbsup: 2n'd on that , it only takes 2 miniutes and its done .
Brian.

[alocky]

There's also a product called 'sight black' which is available as a spray. It's noticeably better than flat black, but does not adhere as well, so it's for surfaces that are not handled at all. It is used by competition shooters to get the best contrast between the target and their sights.
Cheers,
Andrew.

[asimov]

Flock it.

[bojan]

Black paper does the trick nicely (available as any stationary)

[LewisM]

I flocked it :)