Turn your camera lens into a grab and go

[themos]

Do you have a 300mm f/4 camera lens or similar? Why not turn it into a grab-and-go (10x - 100x) telescope? This website shows you how to do it with a lens cap and bits from a diagonal:

Building an Eyepiece Holder for Canon EF Lenses Using a Rear Lens Cap

[Jupiter Martin]

Great idea

[brendant]

A nice idea but a rather expensive way of making a scope. At £1050 for a Canon 300 F4 lens, much cheaper and better to buy a telescope. It is although a solution to mounting a guide camera on a camera lens (QHY5 or similar) to act as a guidescope. I used a similar arrangement to convert an old Sigma 400mm - Canon fit lens to act as a cheap guidescope and it works a treat.

Brendan

[themos]

My 300mm f/4 cost about £70. For a few quid more I will have a grab-and-go refractor. Or turn a 50mm lens into an electronic finder...

[skye at night]

A nice idea but a rather expensive way of making a scope. At £1050 for a Canon 300 F4 lens, much cheaper and better to buy a telescope.

Brendan

so can you find me a high quality f4 refractor that can do imaging as well as visual for <1000???

I dont think themos was suggesting that anyone buy a canon lens for the purpose.. but asked if anyone had a suitable lens already...

and it is as a 'secondary' grab and go solution rather than a primary setup...

My worry would be that the rear lens covers are often not too tight a fit.. so half decent ep's are at risk... but some duct tape could cover that.

Thanks for the link themos, something I have 'toyed' with myself.

Steve

[FraserClarke]

oooh. nice idea. I have a Nikon f/4 300mm that doesn't get as much use as it should...

Some fun with lens caps and epoxy coming up I think

[Psychobilly]

I toyed with this in the past with M42 , T-mount and Minolta Lenses for imaging...