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The Astro-Tech universal plate is designed primarily to hold the mounting rings of longer focal length Astro-Tech, TeleVue, Parks, Takahashi, Vixen, and Meade refractors. It will also hold the mounting rings of reflectors and the larger Astro-Tech, Questar, Meade, and Celestron catadioptric optical tubes.

The dovetail has a series of 25 unthreaded 6.9mm diameter mounting holes for attaching rings and other accessories using 1/4”-20 or metric bolts. One hole is on the plate’s centerline, plus there are 12 pairs of holes on 60mm centers extending the length of the plate. The engineering drawing in the feature image below shows the spacing of the mounting hole pairs. There are also two 0.25” wide x 4.2” long slots on the plate’s centerline. Their location is also shown in the engineering drawing. This combination of mounting holes and slots allows you to install virtually any configuration of mounting rings.

The holes and slots are all countersunk on the underside of the dovetail. This assures that the bolts holding the mounting rings will not protrude and keep the dovetail plate from sliding back and forth in the mount saddle for balancing. As a thoughtful touch, the corners of the dovetail are slightly rounded to keep them from digging into the saddle and hanging up if the dovetail is not perfectly straight when it is installed on the mount.

There is a 1/4”-20 thread hole at each end of the plate. This lets you thread 1/4”-20 bolts into the holes to act as safety stops. These will keep the dovetail from sliding out of the mount saddle unexpectedly should the mount’s locking knob loosen accidentally.

The 0.5” thick dovetail is precision-machined of aluminum stock. It measures 13” long x 4” wide overall and is anodized black for good looks and durability. It weighs 1.95 lbs.