Telrad

[Spoon]

hi guys, would you be able to tell me what a telrad does and if it would help with an astromaster 130eq

[Helen]

A telrad is a type of red dot finder First Light Optics - Telrad Finder . I've got one on each of my scopes as I find them a very intuitive way of locating things in the sky - its very easy to see which way your scope is moving and pointing. I would think it, or the rigel equivalent, would be a good addition to your scope. For me, buying such a red dot finder completely changed the level of my enjoyment as it was only then that I started to be able to find things!

Helen

[garethmob]

effectivly a telrad is a 0 magnification reflex red dot finder, the actual red dot is in 3 disks which when used with similar "telrad sheets" over starmaps can very accuratly show the user the object and how far away it is from others, its really useful for "star hopping

their usually used on large scopes (as they are pretty big) i guess it would help you find objects but i dont know if it would really fit on there due to its size

perhaps the rigel quick finder (very similar to the telrad but much smaller) might be more useful for you

lol helen beat me to it

[JamesM]

The Telrad is a great piece of kit as is the smaller Rigel Quikfinder here. They work by your brain merging two images together, one from the your eye looking at the night sky, the other looking through that finder's perspex screen which has projected on it a set of red circles. Together, these two images give the impression that red circles are now being projected on the night sky and it is the size of these circles that help you find your chosen object as in this example PDF which is free and comes originally from here. Hope that helps.

Clear skies

James

[Spoon]

Sounds good. b'day is coming up so will ask for it then

[Tinker1947]

I use a Telrad, i also use Stellarium which has the Telrad circles as a option, after a bit of practice its possible to drop the FOV right on or very close to DSO's , well worth using...There are loads of Telrad Maps just Google for them there free as is Stellarium....

[Viv]

Yep -agree - it's a great bit of kit.

Also i'd recommend the cover, or dew heater - it does fog very quickly.

[Bizibilder]

As said Telrad's are exellent but are dew magnets!!