A red-dot finder mod for dslr's

A Red-Dot Finder Mod. for DSLR's!

This is something that can be made up in a few minutes and comes in mighty handy when finding/framing shots with a camera and lens piggy-backed.

This little modification uses one of the cheaper types of red dot finders with a plastic leg and base that normally fits into the little "foot" saddle clamp located on your scope's OTA (one is listed at $19 on "Andrews" site at time of posting.)

And of course we're not talking DSLR through scope (tip for this scenario: use the scope's finder!!!!!) but rather where we are taking images via the camera and attached lens method.....I find it very helpfull with my F4L or any of my other lenses etc.

It can be a bit difficult looking through DSLR viewfinders at times in these situations to centre/frame any specific region of the sky: even with some of the 0.9Xplus viewfinders.....so here's what I did.....

Using a small fine-toothed saw or hacksaw, or in my case (quick and lazy) a dremel with cutting wheel, just slice off the 3 "lips" at the bottom of the red dot finder's base that form the "backstop" and the 2 sides where the clamping screw of the OTA base would normally screw up against it and trim the now flat rectangular base down with some coarser followed by finer sandpaper.....such that the leading edge (front) or this base is slightly thinner than the back edge.....in other words it tapers in thickness from front to back.

Depending upon the actual physical style of the finder "leg" you may have to slice off a small section of the leg moulding's vertical "brace/gusset" to make the (now) tapered rectangular base fit into the camera hotshoe (see pikky) I reduced the original base size after removing the "lips" to approximately 19 X 17mm for the hotshoe.

The object of this exercise is to get the base to be able to slide snugly and securely into the hotshoe attachment on top of your dslr so that it is firm and secure ( a slightly "tight" fit) but neither overly so, nor sloppy.

Because of the nature of the thermo-plastic the finders are constructed of you will find this an easy job.....just make sure as you "trim" it down to fitting specs with the grades of sandpaper that you keep trying/checking the fit....!

Results: a finder that will allow you to set the red dot with the image of a bright star centred in the camera's FOV aligned for easy targetting of the camera.....it can be slid on or off with some slight pressure when needed or not....!

I find mine a great help and it is very robust.....I have inadvertantly knocked it several times during a session whilst imaging and once aligned seems to stay so....perhaps because it is plastic and somewhat "flexible".....

After I put the RedDot finder into the hotshoe, I just swing around to a brightish star and centre the star on the central autofocus point looking through the camera viewfinder.....and then, I set the finder's red dot onto the star too.