Putting a camera directly on to the mount's dovetail

[FlatWhite (Colin)]

Hi, I have been exerimenting with taking night sky images with my camera (60D) and its lenses on a normal camera tripod. Have a Celestron beginner telescope with a tracking mount. Am wondering if there is a relatively cheap fitting to put the camera onto the mount's dovetail instead of the telescope, so I can try longer exposures without as much movement in the stars (concern weight of camera plus telescope is probably too much for mount).

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks
Colin

[bojan]

here ...

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Or make your own. I've scored a couple of Server Rack rails from some dumped equipment at work. One of the steel rails is 42 mm wide and fits the groove in my EQ6. Better get the hacksaw out and some alum channel, find some camera mount screws and away we go.
Bunnings has heaps of extruded aluminium that will do the job.

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

ADM accessories have some good looking ball joint camera to mini dove tail metal bits for a good price
Graham

[StarsInMyEyes (Peter)]

Hi Colin

It wouldnt be that hard to make your own. All you need is an old/spare dovetail or bit of aluminium that fits and a 1/4" bolt. (The standard camera thread is 1/4")

Peter

[asimov (John)]

Yeah, I've done this a few times when I first started a few years ago. I even made my own Dovetail out of a piece of wood at one stage. It worked well.

[FlatWhite (Colin)]

Thank you

Will see what I can do with a trip to Bunnings. The ADM accessories site looks useful to know about, may end up there yet.

Thanks again
Colin