Mounting Explore Scientific finderscope on Skywatcher Refractor

[cpartsenidis]

Hello everyone,

I've decided to purchase the 8x50 Explore Scientific finderscope for my Skywatcher Equinox 120ED. The finderscope arrived, but I didn't expect its shoe to be that different from what I have on my skywatcher!

The question is, if someone can point me towards a finderscope shoe or adaptor that I can use to mount the finderscope on my refractor ?

Below are some pictures to help understand what I need:

[cpartsenidis]

Any tips from anyone ?

[John]

The mount for the ES finder scope looks very much like the one used by Meade on their AR5 and AR6 refractors. Your scope clearly has a Moonlight focuser and Skywatcher type finder shoes. I'm really not sure there is an adapter readily available to convert the Meade-type to the Skywatcher-type. I think you might have to resort to some "do it yourself" approach to get it mounted.

It might be possible to take the ES finder scope out of it's current mount and put it into a Skywatcher compatible 50mm finder mount I suppose

[cpartsenidis]

John,

Thanks for your reply. I was actually thinking the same, getting a Skywatcher finder mount, however the issue here is if the ES finderscope can fit into a skywatcher finder mount?

In your experience, do the finder scopes of same aperture have the same diameter and therefore can be placed in different finder mounts ? If so, then I can purchase a skywatch finder mount for it!

[John]

Chris,

Sadly not - in my experience there are subtle variations in the diameter of 50mm finders !

In the long run it might be simpler to see if you could trade the ES finder / mount for a Skywatcher one - that would be a straight fit.

[AndyH]

Is the ES finder the same as this one(scroll down to near the bottom of the page) ?

Kokusai Kohki goods

Andy.