'Free' Solar Finder

[Moonshane]

I had a spare 6x30 optical finder bracket and thought I'd try making a solar finder for my scopes. generally there's not an issue with finding the sun as I use the shadow of the OTA but as I had this lying about I thought I'd give it a go.

I also had a 1.25" drawtube plug which a previous owner had drilled a hole in so I used this on one side and a circle cut from a plastic milk bottle (such a useful thing to the DIY astronomer!)  on the other and stuck them both on with silicone (so they can easily be removed later if required). I expected the alignment to be off a bit but as it happens it was pretty good. I put a black dot on the rear to indicate best position but really you can 'guestimate' reasonably well.

Works really well and when the sun's projection is central on the black spot it repeatably gets the disk in the centre of a 50x plossl view.

Here's some pics. You could of course use the principle with many other designs/bits but this was using what I had about me.

[oldpink]

nice

[Stu]

Ingenious Shane :-)

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[Moonshane]

trying to be an eco warrior, saving the planet one milk bottle at a time

[Stu]

Well you've got to keep a lid on your spending Shane.......

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[Moonshane]

indeed, I'll need to milk the account for every penny for the Lunt 50.

[Stu]

When is this mythical Lunt beast going to appear then Shane? They seem to be rarer than Quarks!! ;-)

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[Moonshane]

there's a rumour it maybe this week!

[Stu]

Great!!

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[nightfisher]

Nice little finder, i am now kicking myself as i chucked out the old finder from my old 120 evostar (yes i have owned one of these as well as many others  )

[Fozzie]

Haha, Great idea!

[Joseki]

Nicely done. I made one like that myself. The best thing about it is it just uses the standard finder shoe.

[Gina]

Interesting   Might do similar if I get into white solar again.  I might get a Lunt 50 next year - too many other projects ATM

[nightfisher]

I was so impressed when i saw how well it works.....i made one myself, had to buy the finder bracket from astroboot but still cheap

[Moonshane]

Hope it works as well as mine mate.