Equinox 80: Guide scope / mounting

[dmahon]

I'm slowly getting all my bits and pieces together so that I can start taking some photos of the sky at night. A x2 and x4 Barlow arrived in the last 48 hours, together with a RDF, to add to the bits in my signature file. Unfortunately I have to wait a month or so to pick up a second hand Canon 450D from a friend. I still have one or two more things to get, and I was wondering if I could be pointed in the right direction:

1) A dovetail for my Equinox 80 so it can be properly balanced on the HEQ5 (it comes with an L mount, which is hard to balance now, and will be impossible with a camera hanging off the back). I presume I'll need rings as well (which ones) or can the dovetail be bolted directly to the L mount?

2) A guide scope. The smaller the better, I guess - can I somehow use a finderscope as a guide scope?

3) Some way of mounting said guide scope on the Equinox 80.

[dmahon]

No help?

[Dave-Ryan]

The Skywatcher Startravel 80 makes a good guide scope and I would suggest a duel mounting bar to mount the scopes side by side.

[simon84]

You can get some CNC rings for the Equinox which can then be bolted to a vixen style or losmandy style dovetail plate.

If you going to for a finder guider, you can get a set of small guidescope rings specifically for this that will bolt to the top of the CNC ring, this will make for a very lightweight system indeed.

Rings, Revelation Mounting Rings 90mm

I believe there are a set of these over on the astroboot website at scopes n skies site for £20.

HTH