Adding a 2nd Finder to a SW80ED

[SniffTheGlove]

I am looking to get a few things ready for the darker skies of winter.

I will be purchasing a SW80ED DS PRO from FLO soon.

The SW80ED will go onto my EQ6Pro and will be used for imaging mainly.

The SW80ED only come with one Finder mounting shoe, so my SW9x50 QHY5 FinderGuider will use that shoe.

How would I go about adding a 2nd shoe to attach a normal SW9x50 Finder?

I have 2 spare shoes I got from FLO last year and these are screw mounted and I am a bit nervous about drilling holes into a SW80ED that I do not have yet to see if it is actually possible.

Has anybody added a 2nd finder to a SW80ED or does anyone have a better solution.

Thanks

[Spikey]

Would there be any particular reason why you wanted to do this; apart from the obvious?

You'll probably find that when you have live view with the 1100 you can use that as an electronic finder.

[russellhq]

I have a very similar set-up but don't use a second finder.

Because I use a laptop to control everything, I use a program called AstroTortilla to find where I am. Basically I turn on the mount, slew to a point in the sky, take a 5 sec image and then let AstroTortilla work out what I am actually pointing at and send a sync command to EQMOD. It works really well and gets me pointing at my chosen target within minutes.

It also has the added benefit where you can, on a subsequent night, use an image from a previous session and AstroTortilla will move the scope to exactly where you want it.

This is just a brief overview and there are a couple more things you will need to know, if you're interested I can expand on this a bit more.

[SniffTheGlove]

Spikey, That is a good idea.

russellhq, I have dabbled with AT before but could I struggled with my equipment back,especially getting focus correct on my 350D when mount and laptop were separated by a distance. But when I get the new gear focusing issues should be less. Please expand, the info I have the more I learn.

The idea is by having a second finder shoe I can use one for the finderguider and the other for a normal finder to help with alignment and it all sits on the SW80ED and I don't have to try using dual dovetail setups. Well that was my idea :-) but if others can do it better I am all ears.