advice sought to turn my old nexstar 5 into a spotting scope

[rowan46]

I have an old nexstar with the old fixed scope, being a portable astronomer I find it a bit of struggle getting the mount, scope, tripod and power pack on my back to walk to a darker site and I can't be asked when I come home from work to put it all on the trolley and walk the extra 3/4 mile to take the trolley down the ramp to the canal. I tried to sell it a while ago but nobody wants an old scope like this so I am left with a portable scope with excellent optics on a semi portable mount which I am getting more and more disinclined to carry.

Has anybody deforked an old nexstar and if so what parts are needed to turn it into a C5 spotting scope capable of being mounted on an ordinary photo tripod.

Many thanks

[Peter Drew]

Deforking is just a matter of undoing the screws which hold the OTA to the fork. To remount it as a spotting scope, there used to be available a "shoe" that screwed on to the rear cell, this had a quarter inch tapping for a tripod. You might be able to get one of these from Astroboot. A 45 degree erecting prism will complete the job.

[rowan46]

Deforking is just a matter of undoing the screws which hold the OTA to the fork. To remount it as a spotting scope, there used to be available a "shoe" that screwed on to the rear cell, this had a quarter inch tapping for a tripod. You might be able to get one of these from Astroboot. A 45 degree erecting prism will complete the job.

Thankyou