ChargeNut

Hi, Sorry not been on here for a while. Just thought I'd and have a browse around and found this! If you are still in need of these I can indeed get a few sets printed out, and send a set out to you! Thanks, Terry.

Lots of interesting thoughts here... I too am new to all this (first scope as of the 24th March), I've already started to invest some cash into the hobby as I received today a Skywatcher 4mm UWA Eyepiece and just tried it out (literally just now). Great magnification on the moon and made even better with the addition of a moon filter. BTW when I said I would be happy to print and send these brackets to people. I wasn't joking, I ran a batch last night on my printer, so seriously if anyone wants to try them out, please let me know! (Now available in 1mm, 2mm and 3mm variants). If I send a set out, I will include all three sizes for the person to experiment with until they get what they need in the way of alignment.

I recently got a Celestron Astromaster 130EQ Telescope for my birthday and have been having loads of fun looking at and taking photos of the Moon over the last few days. One issue I had with the scope was that I couldn't angle the Red Dot Finder down enough to align it with the object I could see in the Telescope. I have been using it by taking note of the distance the red dot was out and trying to direct the telescope taking this difference into account. It occurred to me (before I looked at this forum) that if I could only raise the tail of the red dot finder higher (I could see that to bring the dot down the LED at the back was raised), I could get the alignment accurate. I took the mounting bracket apart and looked at the design of the plates. I then designed some new ones in Sketchup widened the back dimension and, as I have a 3D printer, printed the new ones out. The new bracket plates are 2mm wider at the back hence raising the back of the finder higher by 2mm, which in turn lowers the red dot down to it's correct alignment point. I thought I'd post on here to say how I resolved this issue as I notice that others had also suffered from this problem. I have posted the STL (design) files for the 3D parts up onto Thingiverse should anyone want to download and print some for themselves, I will also put out an offer to print some for others should they not have access to a 3D printer (just PM me). Here is a picture of the new mount plates in place. Terry.