Mounting a small scope with a guidescope/camera

[LaurenceT]

Having recently acquired an Askar FMA 180 I would appreciate any ideas for mounting this with a my Evoguide 50ED guidescope/camera setup on an EQ mount. I can only come up with a solution involving a comparatively cheapish Geoptik side by side mounting plate, (why are the other mounting plates so expensive?)

 

[Elp]

As you can see in the geoptic, it's just a standard dovetail bar with two saddle clamps attached. I also don't understand why they're so expensive considering you can put it together yourself. Your simplest option is to unmount the askar from the orange bar, get a dovetail which has pre drilled and tapped holes/slots and mount it as a cross so you have declination balance and two points to bolt to one in front of the other for each scope. Then it's a game of finding the right screws, bolts and washers if you need to pack, fairly straightforward though.

An alternative is to use a DSLR cheese plate or dslr rig mounting plates, then can be quite short however and the holes are usually small like M6 or 1/4 or 3/8 inch.

 

[LaurenceT]

Many thanks for that, not being in the slightest way an engineer I'm having trouble visualising what you mean. The orange bar is in fact a WO dovetail bar, one side being Vixen compatible and the other side being Arca Swiss although that's probably a red herring!

[Elp]

Mount it something like this, the bar going across might be offset so your heavier scope is placed accordingly to balance it out.

Trouble is finding vixen dovetails with the right sort of slots or mounting holes, a small losmandy may also do it.

[Elp]

Or you can get tube rings with mounting holes in the tops for one scope and mount the other on top, that will give better balance.

[LaurenceT]

That's clearer now, many thanks.

[Ratlet]

Altair do a cheaper side by side mount that is pretty decent imho:

https://www.altairastro.com/starwave-dual-vixensynta-175-inch-side-by-side-dovetail-bar-kit-230mm-ota-separation-208-p.asp

I use mine to great success.

For my Tair 3 I got some of the 90mm skywatcher tube rings from Flo and 3D printed some spacers  I lined with velour.  Spacers are split so they can squeeze a bit. One of the rings has a 1/4" screw that my svbony mini guide scope screws into and works very well also.  £30 for the rings and about 6p for the plastic for the spacers.

In your case you might get away with the rings and spacers to hold the imaging scope and space the rings out so you can mount the guide scope directly to the rings.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Ratlet
I'm an idiot.

[LaurenceT]

Thanks for pointing out the Altair offering, I hadn't seen that one.

You've provided me with a great deal of information.

Edited November 11, 2022 by LaurenceT