Got 102 mm mak, worth getting 130 mm newt? or 127 mm mak?

[Cosmic Geoff]

Wearing my mechanical engineer hat, I'd say that the linked slotted dovetail bar looks like it should do the job.  Alternatively, any dovetail bar could be made to serve with a couple of suitable holes drilled and countersunk. You could fit a bar the same length as the tube, with some packing near the screws and thin double sided sticky tape to prevent movement between the bar ends and the OTA end caps.  I assume that you do not want to drill the OTA.

Alternatively, get this:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dovetails-saddles-clamps/skywatcher-l-bracket-dovetail.html

Its use should be self-explanatory. See the customer reviews.

[pellgarlic2]

11 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

Wearing my mechanical engineer hat, I'd say that the linked slotted dovetail bar looks like it should do the job.  Alternatively, any dovetail bar could be made to serve with a couple of suitable holes drilled and countersunk. You could fit a bar the same length as the tube, with some packing near the screws and thin double sided sticky tape to prevent movement between the bar ends and the OTA end caps.  I assume that you do not want to drill the OTA.

Alternatively, get this:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dovetails-saddles-clamps/skywatcher-l-bracket-dovetail.html

Its use should be self-explanatory. See the customer reviews.

Thanks for the reassurance about the dovetail bar 🙂

Yeah, I'd rather not have to drill or countersink anything if possible, especially not the OTA 😝

That L bracket looks very interesting... to be honest, I had to do a general web image search before it "clicked" in my mind about exactly how it would all fit together >_> (it's been a long day...) but that could very well fit the bill. Nice find - thanks 😁

The weird thing is, I'd looked through FLO's site multiple times, and probably seen that in the results multiple times, but it never jumped out as a possible solution. Perhaps because the image doesn't really show the dovetail shape very clearly, and also because it would result in an orientation of the mounted device that's rotated 90 degrees from the "expected" orientation on the AZ GTi. I suspect its alignment process would account for that though?

Edited June 28, 2019 by pellgarlic2

[happy-kat]

A red dot (or what ever you align with) is a red dot pointing at the alignment star irrespective of how it is attached there is no upside right side etc. I use one of those L brackets on the virtuoso mount or sometimes I don't the mount aligns fine I expect the az-gti would be no different.