Hello everyone.
Firstly, Hickny, the 'litescope' you mentioned is a very nice design. I've also seen it used by two other ATM'ers, Moonsilver scopes, the other being made by a fellow IIS member, 'scopemansit', who has posted pics of his beautiful work in these forums. However, I'm not sure if these last two are commercial ventures.
I have been experimenting with the Odyssey II, changing one finder and adding a second.
I've had a whinge on the mental gymnastics needed with traditional straight-through finders. Having tried right-angle-correct-image (RACI), they don't do it for me either. I sought out a correct image straight through, and grimaced at the price. So, I made my own from a 7X50 pair of binoculars.
I asked IIS members if they have had experience with making these. Thanks to all who replied to my query, served to inspire and create,
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I cut the binocs to keep the focusing mechanism on the eyepiece without the diopter, keeping the other eyepiece to act as a focuser for a second finder to make,
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The mounting mechanism is based on another common system: the secondary holder of a Newtonian,
! Simple and it works
!
The reticle was a matter of finding the focus of the eyepiece, which thankfully fell inside the tapered internal flange ring. The wire was donated by a diused short phone lead. It is about 0.1mm in diameter. The centre of the eyepiece was found using a geometric trick from year 8 high school (I'm glad I paid attention that day!). Two tiny holes (0.5mm) were drilled at each wire terminus position to wind the loose wire ends and tension the wires in place.
This modified finder is a little heavier than the Unitron finder it is replacing, but it is only a prototype. The refined end design will be even lighter. I kept the prismatic form of the binocular because this system creates the correct image orientation.
The second finder I attached towards the rear end of the scope. The Odyssey focuser being so high, and the truss design also requiring a step ladder (I aint the tallest bugger), finding new objects often had me repositioning the ladder two or three times because the original gross positioning was significantly out. So this second finder was my answer. Works a treat too,
. Not once did I have to do a double take. The finder came borrowed from another scope.
I hope all this made sense. If not, look at the pictures!