Indoor astronomy

A cloudy one tonight so I took the opportunity to sort some kit out. I ordered a new finderscope which arrived on Monday, a Skywatcher 9×50 RACI (right angled corrected image). I also ordered an extra base.
I attached the extra base with double sides sticky pads, butting it up to the collar of the OTA (optical tube assembly) to give it a bit of stability. I wasn’t ever intending to drill new holes in the OTA to fix it. The extra base was to take the old RDF (red dot finder) which I still might want to use. The extra base is to the right of the eyepiece holder in this photo.

I did set the scope up but only to test out aligning the finders with the OTA. Sky was just orange with cloud. Got everything lined up nice though and packed up.
I used to leave the RDF attached to the OTA but I didn’t think that was a great idea for either finder now. The RACI is too heavy so something will get damaged and I’d rather not put any strain on the sticky pads holding the RDF base on. An excuse then to reorganise the foam cutouts in my eyepiece case. It is satisfying to have everything fitted snugly in there. Left spaces for future eyepieces I have my eye on.

Final job of the evening was to wrap some red film round one of the camping lanterns and put a piece inside a torch so I have decent redlights so as not to impair the night vision when observing.