Finder using 520nm Laser, and Laser to Eyepiece adapter

thingiverse

Be responsible using green lasers for astronomy. Pay attention to aircraft. This set makes it easy to use a laser as a finder. I chose a 520nm USB laser, but any 12mm OD laser can work without modification. You can just search "520nm 10mW laser w USB", i.e. ebay or amazon. (For astronomy, diode type lasers are better than 532nm frequency-doubled lasers, which will lose green laser power on cold nights. To make it worse, those units often omit an IR filter and are still blasting an invisible 1064nm beam when they go cold and dim.) "Laser to EP Adapter...stl" is meant to make an interface between the laser and any eyepiece, be it polar scope or 1.25" eyepiece with an OD between 26 and 33mm. This will feed the laser straight into the scope and you can see where it's pointing. A cheap short focal lenngth eyepiece is ideal, but it will work for most. It may fail to clear the secondary in a fast Newtonian especially with > 20mm eyepieces, but for typical use cases it should work. This is especially useful for those moments when you're lost. "Where's the star? Is that the right one?" ... my STL may be upside-down, just print it the way it's obviously supposed to go, maybe I'll fix it... No additional hardware needed for the EP Adapter. "Mirror mount, Simple...stl" is a specific version of my own Parametric Mirror Mount. You can get the OpenSCAD file and retune it if you want a different laser. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6153903 Of course the "Finder Bracket, M4" is the other piece if you want to use the Mirror Mount as a finder. You want to print the bracket with heavy walls so it won't get deformed by the setscrews in your finder dovetail holder. Hardware for finder mount: 10x6x1mm compression spring (easy to find online) M4x15 nylon screw (non-marring setscrew) M3x20 SS socket-head (adjuster) M3, M4 SS nut M3, M4 SS washers M4x12 SS screw