Adjustable solar finder mount from RDF

[michaelmorris]

Ever since I bought a Revelation 66 Apo with SM40 Ha solar filter from Astrofest in 2011, I've been looking for a decent solar finder setup. Given that I blew my entire Astrofest budget (and a bit more) on this one purchase I figured I should try to reign in my spending a bit, so I plumbed for an Astroengineering solar finder for around £20.

Astro Engineering AC618 Universal Solar Finder

To be honest, this has never really worked for me.

Reviewing the options, the Televue Sol-Searcher looked to be the best solar finder around, but I couldn't work out a way to mount it on my scope and make it adjustable.

A few weeks ago it struck me that a cheap red dot finder should provide all the adjustability I would need, so at Astrofest this year I picked up a Televue Sol-Searcher for £25. I then bought a mega-cheap red dot finder from Scope 'n' Skies's 'Astroboot' section (just £6).

I took off the whole LED and semi-reflective window housing and bolted the Sol-Searcher to the top of the remaining parts of the red dot finder. I then drilled two holes in the base plate of the red dot finder so that I could screw it to the baseplate from the original Astroengineering solar finder.

Hey presto, I now have a de-mountable, fully adjustable top class solar finder - result.

[DIYASTRO]

nice one Michael! Looks just the ticket and good idea using the RDF for adustment.

Boyd