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Using laser pointers as finders
Hi Allan,
Very good advice about not using a laser in company when other people are imaging. I have not been guilty of this myself but have witnessed anguished howls from astrophotographers when this was done, swiftly followed by shouts... However I operate my scopes well away from the crowd - Here are a couple of images by a friend (Terry Cuttle) from an errant hot air balloon. They show my twin section roll off roof observatory on a ridge top back of Mt Coot-tha in Brisbane. One of my main problems is...you guessed it - trees and this is the reason I got the 9.25 inch so I could go to various spots outside the observatory (within our land) where I could get a good view of particular events/objects. The observatory is great east&west, which is my main area of interest but north is pretty poor - and some other angles can be a problem.
Thanks for the offer about 3D printing a holder,Meru, but this simple clip is amazing and easy to use with an instrument mounted on one of these rails. It holds the laser securely without movement. I have added a little padding adjustment to the rail and also discovered another easy adjustment because the laser alignment does not perfectly coincide with its tube. - Just rotate the laser a bit.
I posted this because the solution was so remarkably simple. Usually when you devise a simple solution, you have overlooked something, but this one looks okay, and so I thought I would share it.
Another point I would make is that these mounting rails might be used to attach other accessories, especially if you wanted to leave the telescope tube alone. Okay it would affect the fore/aft balance but it wouldn't reguire as much counterweighting as mounting it atop the telescope further away from the fulcrum. There are a whole lot of factors at play here and I don't want to do more than just flag it.
Peter.
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