Attaching a guide scope to a dslr

[TiffsAndAstro]

Pretty much of only way seems to attach the guidesscope to the underneath of my vixen dovetail on the front/lens end?

With only one screw attaching my dslr and I guess one on the guide scope I'd be worried about lining them up and diverging.

Any got a link to a discussion of other options ? Had a quick search on these forums without any luck which makes me think no one does it for good obvious reasons

[TiffsAndAstro]

Ignore this sorry

 

Another option is an l bracket. Seems fiddly but maybe bit more accurate. Maybe

 

Something called a cheese plate too looks grate

 

Delta astro showed a us made hotshoe clamp and a matchstick looks like https://uk.neewer.com/products/neewer-ls-t16-metal-finderscope-mount-adapter-66602872?_pos=6&_sid=b55c8a422&_ss=r

Which I think would do me nicely

Edited March 25 by TiffsAndAstro
Seems Google's #1 result is there for a teadon

[Elp]

I think you've asked this before and I recommended cheese plates, did you look into it?

It doesn't really matter if the guidescope is pointed slightly off from the main as long as it's near to the altitude you're imaging at. The important part is making sure the autoguide calibration routine alignment is a good 90 degrees (Ra to Dec) and ensuring the guidescope doesn't move or the guide camera doesn't rotate mid session.

Edited March 25 by Elp

[Varavall]

34 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

Pretty much of only way seems to attach the guidesscope to the underneath of my vixen dovetail on the front/lens end?

Hi

I wished to do similar using a ZWO camera and Nikon lenses and I have been down that route and found at certain points the guidescope fouled the mount. So I machined some scrap aluminium plates and attached them to the bar, and now I can fix the guidescape and mini PC to one plate and have a removable plate to attach the camera lens and focuser - see photo. It works very well for me.

[TiffsAndAstro]

1 hour ago, Varavall said:

Hi

I wished to do similar using a ZWO camera and Nikon lenses and I have been down that route and found at certain points the guidescope fouled the mount. So I machined some scrap aluminium plates and attached them to the bar, and now I can fix the guidescape and mini PC to one plate and have a removable plate to attach the camera lens and focuser - see photo. It works very well for me.

Wow I couldn't do this even if I wanted too.

[TiffsAndAstro]

1 hour ago, Elp said:

I think you've asked this before and I recommended cheese plates, did you look into it?

It doesn't really matter if the guidescope is pointed slightly off from the main as long as it's near to the altitude you're imaging at. The important part is making sure the autoguide calibration routine alignment is a good 90 degrees (Ra to Dec) and ensuring the guidescope doesn't move or the guide camera doesn't rotate mid session.

Apologies cheese plate looks a good choice for me I think.

 

[Elp]

To give you an idea this was one of my earlier configurations, I didn't want an L bracket as it's fixed as one position and why restrict yourself unnecessarily. Cheese plates were better for me as there's a multitude of fixing holes, you can get different plates and configure them to hold anything however you like. If they're used in a professional imaging/videography capacity why not astro. I have different cameras and lenses so this flexibility is critical. Image:

Astro camera and lens on left, guide in centre and 600D on right. Generally well balanced in Dec too. The general config of the rig is a vixen dovetail in the bottom centre attached to the mount saddle, a medium sized cheese plate centre top on the dovetail, two narrow cheese plates left and right with the cameras attached to, the two narrow plates I can fix lengthways to the larger plate or perpendicular and upright. It helps to have a few cap head screws at hand and leave them attached to the plates so when you do reconfigure, the bolts you need are already at hand.

I've still got this rig, but I've moved onto something "better" which is more fixed as I didn't much like chopping and changing, but having it still around helps say if I'm imaging or videoing an event with multiple cameras, I can just attach and use the one mount.

[Elp]

Note, if mounting multiple cameras imaging the same target it gets more "complicated". You either use a camera/lens config so the two imaging trains balance out frame wise, or you need adjustment saddles which can get expensive, and you need a mount capable of driving the weight and moment force.

Edited March 25 by Elp

[Elp]

I'm sure there's a hot shoe mount option you can look for, but depending on the size and weight of your GS+GC config I'd be a bit dubious of attaching it to such a small surface area on top of the DSLR.

[Vroobel]

I would recommend a combination of Losmandy/Vixen style dovetail bar with an Arca-Swiss L-bracket. You can easily move the L-bracket along an Arca-Swiss clamp to find the balance. Also, it's easy to rotate the camera/body/lens 90 degrees from its horizontal positioning to vertical one and to attach the guider to the second arm of the L-bracket. One bigger clamp should be screwed to the dovetail bar, smaller one to the guider. 

 

 

Edited March 25 by Vroobel