Maybe stupid, but excuse my caution.

[Slangers]

I have a Celestron Nexstar 8SE and want to replace the finder scope. I've acquired a new dovetail so that I can fix the finder to the OTA. This requires me to remove the existing dovetail which carries the red dot finder. My question is, when I undo the screws that hold the dovetail, are there nuts on the other side which will fall off and get loadged behind the mirror? I'm worried about breaking something.

[Peter Drew]

Hello Slangers, I removed the red dot finder from my 8SE, nothing fell off inside. Good to question though as bits floating about in the tube are a "no no". .

[Ant]

You wouldn't be the first person to have unscrewed something from a sealed tube scope and heard the nut fall into the tube

Without any doubt asking the question was the right thing to do.

Sounds like you're going to be OK though...!

Cheers

Ant

[Slangers]

Thanks for the confirmation Peter. I figured it was probably safe, but noticed that among the various (excessive number) of bolts supplied with the new dovetail a couple had nuts on. Will let you know if it all goes horribly wrong!

[chard]

Two things.

Make sure the bolts you use have the correct thread by gently screwing them in by hand first. It would be easy to strip the aluminium threads in the scope with a steel bolt with the wrong thread.

Make sure the bolts aren't long enough to foul your primary mirror. Keep checking as you screw them in by looking through the corrector. You should see the bolts if they start poking through the inside of the casing.

[Slangers]

Thanks- that's another good tip. My new finder will arrive on Monday, so I will attempt the fitting then.

[Slangers]

Fitting done. Nothing went wrong...