tripod head with two sockets(?)

Lisa Davidson · March 5, 2007

Hi --

Can anyone tell me the name of this part, or if it exists in small format? I want to shoot Super-8 through a Questar telescope, and the adapter that Questar makes will not hold anything more than 12 ounces in weight (this seems hard to believe, because it's a camera adapter after all, but that's what their manual says). So, I think there must be a tripod head with two sockets and some "universal"-type sliding brackets or something, to allow one to mount these two things together. I don't need a super heavy-duty head that would support bigger cameras. The camera is only a few pounds.

Thank you for your help.

Lisa

Mitch Gross · March 5, 2007

What you want is a plate that will attach to the tripod and then you attach the telescope and camera to the plate. The problem is that the height for the bottom of the telescope is going to be much different than the height of the bottom of the camera, so you will likely need a riser of some sort to fill in the gap below the camera. Also there is no standard for the distance between the mounts for the telescope and the camera and often on a camera the mount will not be centered to the lens, so because of these many variables there is no way to make a standard plate to fit. I would suggest a thin plate of aluminum (perhaps an 1/8 of an inch or a couple of millimeters thick) into which you drill a hole for the the tripod (you'll need to attach a nut for the bolt from the top of the tripod head) and then drill a hole to send a bolt through for the telescope. Then just stick various plates of metal between the plate and the bottom of the camera to fill the gap.