Best finder?

[estwing]

Good Morning all, let's get the ball rollin' here..18" truss dob and thinking of putting a Telrad on the UTA,a simple thing to use that has many fans,but i'm wondering if its going to be enough to search for DSO's.Should i be thinking of adding a RACI,baader sky surfer or perhaps a 9x50 finderscope or is the Telrad simply enough? which will give me the least fustration..i only have a simple RDF on my 12" which has been great,but an 18" may need something extra?thanks for your input.

[Steep]

If you have room on the scope, use both a Telrad and a RACI

[lensman57]

Good Morning all, let's get the ball rollin' here..18" truss dob and thinking of putting a Telrad on the UTA,a simple thing to use that has many fans,but i'm wondering if its going to be enough to search for DSO's.Should i be thinking of adding a RACI,baader sky surfer or perhaps a 9x50 finderscope or is the Telrad simply enough? which will give me the least fustration..i only have a simple RDF on my 12" which has been great,but an 18" may need something extra?thanks for your input.

Hi,

I like an optical finder myself. I quite like the idea of an illuminated reticle one working in conjunction with an RDF, as for my scopes that would be an overkill but for an 18" DOB, well you be the judge.

Regards,

A.G

[rory]

ive used mine with a raci finder ,but ive also used it with a low power e/p which also works well. i think id be confident enough to use the telrad alone with a low a power e/p , but i started out without a finderscope ,so i had little choice in the matter.

[estwing]

Telrad and 31mm nagler,sounds tempting..

[John]

My options are a Rigel Quikfinder (Telrad would be great though) plus an 8x50 RACI plus a 31mm Nagler. Lots of the time I can do just fine with just the Quikfinder but it's nice to have other options for other targets types which benefit from them. On an 18" scope I've seen larger optical finders used as well as Telrads. Finder eyepieces don't need to be wonderful quality though - a low cost 2" widefield can do fine as a finder eyepiece.

[estwing]

bigger than 31 John? i'm going to have to get a real low power ep for sky sweeping...are panoptic going to be good at F 3.9?

[Moonshane]

on my 16" (in fact on all my scopes) I use a telrad and RACI 9x50 finder. works perfectly. I can pick out M27, many globs and even M81/82 from darker sites.

[swamp thing]

On my 20" I was going to put just a Telrad on the UTA, and a super (4.5" RFT) finder on the mirror box. However seeing as the UTA is big enough I might go with a RACI finder on it as well (belt and braces job)

[Rossco72]

I use both a Telrad and a 9x50 optical on my 14" dob. Sometimes the sheer number of stars in the eyepiece can be kinda confusing lol!

Cheers

Stuart