Dovetail to Tripod mount adaptor ?

[alan g]

Hi all.

I was wondering if there was such a thing as a dovetail to tripod mount adaptor available.

I have a skywatcher heritage 130p and was thinking of fitting it to a decent table top tripod which would then allow me to take it on holiday without having to take apart the dob mount that the scope comes fitted to as the tripod would be much lighter to take on a plane.

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Alan.

[spaceboy]

You could probably get a short dovetail and fix it to the OTA as dovetails are usually threaded for camera threads found on most camera tripods (if that makes any sense) but you might find focusing a bit of a nightmare unless you can balance it just right ????

[Helen]

This should work, as it has a 1/4 thread hole in the middle which should attach to the tripod head, but you might want to think about how you're going to get the scope at the right angle to allow you to use the eyepiece! If the head on your phototripod flips 90 degrees you may be OK. The other option is to get something like a mini giro mount http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p1541_Giro-Mini---2D-head-and-alt-az-mount---up-to-9-kgs-load.html - they pop up secondhand at reasonable prices - as it works very nicely with the heritage dob and allows a better height adjustment than the dob base...

Helen

[alan g]

Thanks for the suggestions Helen and Spaceboy.

I knew what I was looking for but just didn't know what it was called, after some searching I now know that its just a dovetail clamp.......

Should have been able to figure that out by myself !

Thanks again folks.