My name is Shane and I cannot observe without a finder

[Moonshane]

I was using my new short 80mm apo last night and even with a miniscule 480mm focal length, albeit chasing sucker holes, I found it really quite frustrating without a finder of any kind. Ok, I could find main stars (Vega etc) with the 32mm plossl but being used to getting things straight in the eyepiece at 200x (using my dobs and telrad/RACI finder) I found it a faff without anything. I'll definitely be installing a finder shoe (or two) on the scope in the very near future!

  

[Alien 13]

I struggle to even find the moon without a finder and I am at 400mm, a RDF does the job for me.

Alan

[damnut]

I am glad there is someone else who needs some aid in pointing the glass! Even a little gunsight, but when you think about it a gentle nudge and you are ten parsecs off

[YKSE]

Shane, that's how we get acustomed to the ways we've been doing thing. I had SW 130P with the no-good stock RDF, I learned to sight in position via the OTA sides (from top, left and right), quite qucikly under 3 degrees , which would be seen in 2.6 degree FOV of a 32mm plossl.

As to my 80ED, the 40mm SW AERO shows 4.5 degrees, wider than Telrad.

[Paul M]

Thanks for being so open Shane. I'm sure it took courage

Myself, I've NEVER used one. Until getting GOTO a while ago I'd only ever sighted down the scope tube. Even with my 6" Newt, I kneel down and can usually get with a very small sweeping area of my target or star-hopping start point.

Even with my new brute on the NEQ6 I sight down the tube to get my first star for GOTO alignment ( I don't do the whole park position thing) and when I fowled the scope on a patio chair during a long slew recently I lost alignment so just defaulted to sighting down the tube. The finder has never been mounted.

I only ever mounted the finder on ye olde fullerscope a couple of times and that was for a foto shoot.

Maybe it's because I've never had a finder that looked useful that I've never bothered.

Perhaps there's a help group for me out there...?

[DirkSteele]

Preaching to the choir.  I learnt with a finder and now I am lost without one.  Even with my Tak 60 of only 355mm focal length and a 4 degree plus field I am deeply inefficient.  Plus it is a pain to keep switching to wide field EP every time I want to move on to a new object.

[Stu]

Nice post Shane. I think it does come down to what you are used to.

I had a lovely session in Dorset with the Genesis trawling around Sagittarius without a finder and it worked very well.

That said, if you are working at high power then it is a pain changing eyepieces all the time and I agree that a finder is very handy. I think a nice RDF would sort you out fine though.

[Helen]

A Rigel finder changed my life    Literally, no exaggeration!  When I got one for my scope I suddenly started being able to find things, which got me hooked, which led to me doing an astro degree course....  

Helen 

[Grotemobile]

No way, would I be able to get the

planet, lined up  on the laptop, with

out my finder scope. Had a job trying

to find the moon, with my 22x80 binos, 

last night.   .

Steve.

[spaceboy]

I found my Antares 80mm f/6 had a large enough FOV that I could find most stuff with a general point in the right direction and low mag eyepiece. Having used the Antares without a finder I found it helped me get used to aligning the sun in a similar way for solar observing. I don't look at the sun directly but have a feel for where the scope has to go now, at least on an AZ mount that is. I tried helping someone align their scope to the sun at SGLX but it's a total different game of cricket on a driven EQ mounts

I did later add a rigel finder to my Antares as it made tracking the ISS a lot easier. It also made finding certain larger night sky objects easier. The type that you can see with the naked eye at a dark site but when you look through the scope your not totally sure it's the same thing as the object is now under magnification and no longer discernible from the background.

I'm with you on it though Shane, I'd much rather a finder than no finder. I know have experience with a rigel finder, would this not be an option for you ?

[ollypenrice]

The shorter the scope and the less consistent its diameter the harder it is to point.  Small apos are the worst for this. The shape of the tube doesn't give you anything to sight along.

For aligning imaging rigs I sight along the corners of the tube rings or hold a laser in them. But that's just for one go at the start on an alignment star.

So I agree that finders are vital especially, in a way, on short scopes.

Olly

[Alien 13]

I do find a RDF has advantages over a powered finder letting you align with naked eye objects I remember the 1st time I looked through a polarscope thinking this will be easy only to find lots and lots of stars in the FOV and having to guess.

Alan

[Macavity]

I recall it was Sir Patrick Moore who intimated:  "One can never have too many finders"...

Presumably, one for every *conceivable* orientation of his equatorially mounted Newt?

If I still do any visual astronomy, these days, I swear by my "Baader Skysurfer V"!

For my remote controlled video astronomy thing, I have an almost

"cottage industry" re. budget "Electro Finders" plus mini screens...

But also worth considering if you are "a tad less than nimble"! 

[Qualia]

Aye, it is a right pain. I tend to peer along the small tube and sight about an inch below the target; with some 3.4º TFOV, I reckon I can get there-abouts. I've tried using TV's simple dot finder that came with the scope and although fine for bright targets, it's rubbish on faint stars, so I tend to line up with something bright and star-hop from there which leads to a second problem: star-hopping with a frac! To battle this headache, I've had to mirror reverse my star-atlas and print them out

[John]

I find some sort of finder a "must have" even with the shortest scopes I've owned. I now have an RACI optical finder alongside the MRF or Quikfinder on all my scopes. I've found even a 6x30 RACI very useful with my ED120 for picking up the fainter double stars.

[nightfisher]

I thought this was a wind up at first glance but thinking about it when I had the WO ZS71 I mounted a 9x50 side by side to it, but I can use a long tube wit out a finder for Luna and brighter planets

[Mr Spock]

80mm is a finder...

[m.tweedy]

I COULD use my scopes without a finder but to me it is all about the short time we have and using an RDF for me is much quicker than without one.

[F15Rules]

I, too, am afflicted with "Needafinderitis"...even worse, I have the slightly more extreme version known as "Needaracifinderitis"!

My main scope is 2m long and I still struggle to find objects via the main tube, even with a Moonfish 80deg ep..and for finding fainter doubles etc, unless the finder is a raci one (I'm without one at the moment  ), my brain struggles to match the right-way-up-but-reversed view via a diagonal with the upside-down-whatever-it-is view of the non-raci finder!    

Dave

[Stu]

Dave, you've got no excuse! Don't you just wave the D&G about until it bumps into the target? [emoji6]

[avtaram]

I thought I wouldn't need a finder with my WO ZS71 ED as it gives me a nice wide field, how wrong was I.

In the end I bought the WO multi reticule finder and now finding objects is a breeze.

Avtar

[Piero]

I guess I am an outlier in this thread.. 

It took me a bit to get acquainted with the TV60, but that because in the beginning I only had the Nag 7 with me (1.5 deg) and it is my first refractor (so, first time observing using a diagonal). After about one month, things changed and it became easy. 

For the moon or planets, I start with the Vixen 5mm or Nagler 3.5mm directly, skipping longer focal lengths, unless I intentionally want to see at low power for some reason. These give me about 0.8 degrees fov.

Have to say that these are easy targets and in a refractor, one can simply look for them in the diagonal without eyepiece. 

I can say largely the same for bright doubles, unless these are well separated and generally I start with the Nag 13. 

No problem at all finding with a Nag 13 (2.7 deg), which I use it quite regularly these days due to the bright sky. I can also search some bright dso with the Nag 7, but there the difficulty is more related to the low exit pupil (1.2) which makes some reference star too dim.

I usually point from the backside of the telescope and move my head left, right, and top until I see the target or the target area. What I try is to maintain the same distances (e.g. diagonal->left = diagonal->right = diagonal->top). I do this only using my observing eye (the left one in my case). 

I guess it is just due to practicing with a single telescope for a while. 

Piero

[YKSE]

I usually point from the backside of the telescope and move my head left, right, and top until I see the target or the target area. What I try is to maintain the same distances (e.g. diagonal->left = diagonal->right = diagonal->top). I do this only using my observing eye (the left one in my case). 

I guess it is just due to practicing with a single telescope for a while. 

Piero

That's the way I pointed my EQ mounted 130P, and point to first alignment star with C8 nowadays.

I did try a telrad on 80ED once, just don't feel the need to look through telrad for star-hopping because of wide FOV in 15x, the mirrored view did take a little more time to get used to though.

[Piero]

Actually, just to add some extra pepper to the dish, when I am in Italy and observe with my very first telescope, a small newton 114 F8, I find objects using a straight finder.. No problem with that, actually I find it quite handy.

To be fair though, I haven't ever used a telrad or rdf, and given the very positive comments of many people, I believe these are nice tools. I simply comment because I don't have any issue at all with straight finders or no finder and short tube telescopes.

Eventually what it matters is that a person finds herself comfortable.

Piero

[timwetherell]

Sometimes with a short apo it's even hard to point the finder! I like to have a zero power "gunsight" arrangement so that I gat get the thing at least in the ball park before using the finder. On my setup that consists of a short brass tube which also doubles as a carry handle.