9x50 finder dew shield, home brew

[nightfisher]

As i tend to use a 9x50 r/a finder scope on just about all my OTA`S, i decided to make a dew shield for this finder, seeing as the front lens is only recessed by about 10mm, its prone to dew and stray light.

Heres how i did it:

Very simple, take a suitable 500ml plastic drinks bottle, i used "perfectly clear" but others are available, look at the moulding lines on this bottle, there should be a smooth section, that can be cut out leaving a smooth walled cylinder, aprox 80-90mm long, now cut this cylinder with a single length, end to end cut, so you can open it out.

Next stage is to wrap this in carbon fibre vinyl sheet BUT when cutting carbon vinyl, make sure to make the carbon about 40mm longer than the cylinder, as you need to wrap the plastic bottle section around the front of the finder lens cell, over lapping the cylinder to make a neat tube and the free end of the carbon sticks and makes a nice join.

I placed a thin card ring around finder tube first to act as a spacer, as i wanted to flock the inside of the bottle tube, this is not necessary, but every little helps, if you dont flock it then place a strip of black insulation tape along the inside seem of the plastic...........job done

[Marki]

Neat job, Jules. I think I might give this a try for a cloudy night project! Where do you get carbon vinyl sheeting from, by the way?

My DIY skills leave a lot to be desired, though. Never advanced much beyond "sticky-back plastic" and getting an adult to do the cutting out for me .

[nightfisher]

You can get the sticky backed carbon vinyl on feebay, very easy to do

[spaceboy]

Not as posh as yours Jules but I did something similar myself some time ago. A bit of that craft foam stuff and a bit of velcro. Nice and light and reasonable good water resistant properties. Opens out flat when I'm not using it so can be kept between the pages of a star atlas and cost a total of maybe 20p.

[JohnC64]

Both of those are vast improvement on my attempt. An old mousemat rolled around and kept inplace with a postmans elastic band.

John

[nightfisher]

Having used the finder a couple of times now with its dew shield, it really makes a huge difference under light polluted skies, well worth doing

[asteria]

Very neat job - I will try this too. Thanks for the idea. Ed

[lifeonmars]

Thats a nice job must give this a try myself Thank you for the description and Pictures.

[Astro Imp]

Thanks for the idea, you've made a really neat job. Well done.

[lifeonmars]

Re carbon fibre vinyl dew shield a question for nightfisher when you attach the dewshield to your finder does the sticky bit make a mess of the finish on your finder and what do you do for a lens cap or dont you bother .I like to keep everything capped where possible Thanks

[nightfisher]

Re carbon fibre vinyl dew shield a question for nightfisher when you attach the dewshield to your finder does the sticky bit make a mess of the finish on your finder and what do you do for a lens cap or dont you bother .I like to keep everything capped where possible Thanks

Sorry, only just noticed this question, there are no sticky bits on the dew shield, it slips over the front of the finder, when not in use i slide it of and refit the lens cap

[lifeonmars]

Thanks for the reply Nightfisher yes I have made one up now and it fits very well and looks like it came with the finder! Thanks for the reply and your informative post about making the dewshield Cheers

[nightfisher]

your welcome, glad it was of use