Got to test home-made finder tube at around 415am this morning when a couple of holes appeared in the clouds to reveal Capella and Jupiter. Ideal test subjects :) Tube works a treat. Using one eyed view, making sure the tube walls formed a concentric circle around the 'objective' end of the tube with Jupiter in the centre of the view - switch to look through binoculars and Jupiter perfectly centred (in right eye view at least - convinced there's a major collimation issue with my bins :( ).

Jupiter's moons looked a little weird as there was a definite 'crank' in their alignment with the solar plane. Never noticed this sort of thing before as I've always been struck by how well aligned they've been - this is what made them stand out as moons first time I ever saw them. Checked out on Stellarium and that shows the effect too.

Tried using my newly fixed and modified 'Red Light' Mini Maglite to illuminate the tube walls toward the objective end of the finder. Ths worked really well too! The LED I've installed in the Maglite way too bright for this purpose really. Will do for now though and will give me chance to experiment a little more but looks like attaching an LED to the outside of the tube would be definitely worth while.

Cracking waning Moon around dawn as I retired to bed, couldn't resist a qucik peek through the finder then the bins. Why am I up so fresh at 715am after only 2 hours sleep??