Telescope Mounted Laser Pointer

thingiverse

This is a telescope-mounted holder for a laser pointer that I bought during a trip to China, and it's powerful enough to point out stars at infinity and take down small birds. This item on Amazon appears to be identical to mine: https://www.amazon.com/NULIPAM-Pointer-Visible-Adjustable-Outdoors/dp/B07Z2SPN9Z/ You can tape the on-off button down and use the rear-mounted key to turn the pointer on and off, or print the sleeve to hold down the button. Use M3 hardware to mount. Files included for the holder, the backing, the knobs, and a drill guide. This fits an 8" Sonotube with an ID of 201.2mm and an OD of 208.7mm. It will probably work for other tubes that are slightly different. I made some updates in 2018. On July 25, I added a file for a sleeve you can use on the laser pointer to keep the on button depressed instead of taping it. Slip this sleeve over the button at the start of an observing session and slip it off afterwards. On July 28, I revised the holder to make the ID 3mm bigger because I just couldn't dial it in with the amount of slop in the original. I also increased the size of the recesses for the 3mm nuts so they're not such a tight fit. On July 29, I added another version of the sleeve for the laser pointer ON button. This one rotates to turn the laser on and off. In 2019, I printed out a second holder for my 8" scope. This required a change to the radius of the bracket and the backing plate to match the diameter of the larger tube. Rather than modify the design for every tube, consider this remix by rvaneynd which is compatible with a vixen-style dovetail mount: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3461106