William Optics L shaped mounting bracket

[el_draco]

Greetings,
I'm contemplating buying a small Willam optics scope to use as a guidescope and am wondering:

1/ what to do about this bracket. Does it come off or am I stuck with it?
2/ Can anybody recommend a set of rings to mount it. Prefer not guidescope rings as I have x/y guidestar to add to the unit.

Comments/suggestions gratefully accepted.

Rom

[AlexN]

G'day Rom,

I've owned the ZS66 and ZS70, on both of these scopes the L bracket was removable... I don't know what size rings you would need for either of these scopes, however the L bracket provides 2x 1/4"-20 holes which I used to attach a dovetail.. I've found that to be very secure, and I got no flexture in guided images when using the scope that way... I think the L brackets are very handy to have..

Alex

[el_draco]

Excellent,
Thanks for info. Struggling to find rings that would fit. How did the 66 go for guiding? I'm wondering whether it would have the light grasp to be effective.

Rom

[AlexN]

Provided you have a fairly sensitive guide camera like the Orion star shoot autoguider or the QHY5 you'll be fine! With my QHY5 i've used a 50mm finder scope as a guider and had great results...

I used the ZS66 to guide my C11 and had very few guide issues, and most of them I would attribute to having nearly 22kgs on an EQ6, not due to the ZS66 not being capable...

[JohnG]

Similar to what Alex is doing, I mount both my 70mm and 66mm WO's, using the L Bracket onto one of these, an ADM dovetail adapter plate, this way you can move the guidescope either up or down to establish correct balance.

http://www.admaccessories.com/D_Series_Dovetail_Adapter.htm

I use the 66mm with my Sky 90 and have no problems getting a guidestar, prior to that it was used as the guidescope on my TSA-102 in the field.

Cheers

[citivolus]

As a data point, the Megrez 72 bracket is removable if so desired.

[[1ponders]]

I have the 72FD and I've had issues trying to get rings to fit it. As the other have said, mount it to a plate and leave it at that. It works a treat. With an XY you shouldn't have a problem getting a guidestar.

If you are finding you are having problems getting guidestars then my suggestion would be to get a 0.5 1.25" FR to fit to the front of the guidecamera and go from there. I would be very surprised if you couldn't get a guidestar with a 1-2 sec exposure with a reducer in place.