Telescope Mounted Laser Pointer by charlesodonnell

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

This is a telesope-mounted holder for a laser pointer. I bought this pointer during a trip to China and it's powerful enough to point out stars at infinity and can 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, ID=201.2mm, OD=208.7mm. Will probably work for other slightly different tubes.
UPDATE 2018 07 25: Added a file for a sleeve you can use on the laser pointer to keep the on button depressed instead of taping it. Slip the sleeve over the button at the start of an observing session and slip it off afterwards.
UPDATE 2018 07 28: Revised the holder to make the ID 3mm bigger. 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.
UPDATE 2018 07 29: Added another version of the sleeve for the laser pointer ON button. This one rotates to turn the laser on and off.
UPDATE 2019 12 08: 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