RDF

[yeti monster]

Does anyone recognise this RDF?:

What brand would it be? How much would one expect to pay? Any reviews/experiences of this model? How would it compare to a Telrad, given that it has the concentric circles option?

I'm struggling with translating the chinese spec sheet into understandlish.

[Iris]

The same RDF is sold under a number of brands. I have one - a revelation - it is a repurposed gunsight.

I dont think it has concentric circles - that is a cross with a circle superimposed or a dot with the same and I have no idea what view angle the circle(s) encompass.

It is petite and functional if you want to slug the scope onto something you can see but little use in my experience for finding anything that is not visible to the naked eye.

I think mine costed around 30 odd quid from Telescope House if I recall.

I got it to fit on my little meade ETX 80 cos the telrad would have been bigger than the scope! and primarily to help with putting the tube on alignment stars.

I have found that since I got my clestron c8 I use it much less and have resorted to the finder which is much easier to use than I anticipated, although some times I do still use it to point the scope or as a 'marker' to see where in the sky the tube is pointing without having to deal with the upside down back to front squint my eye finder scope :-)

It has 4 different reticules, a fine dot, a coarse dot a cross and the cross with circle. And 7 brighness settings.

I usually use the bare cross and the lowest setting is fine for brightness. It is still low profile and effective given its limitations - i.e. no graduated circles like telrad or orion. If you just want to put a dot on something its good enough - if you want to systematically find a target in the middle of a blank patch of sky by walking 4 degrees then half a degree then you are out of luck I'm afraid.

[yeti monster]

Thanks Iris, at present I'm just after an RDF, but really I'd be going Telrad at some point, so I guess this isn't really what I aught to be looking at the noo.

[ollypenrice]

The 'information' provided by the Telrad (by showing you what 4 degrees looks like) is a mighty benefit for finding things. You have a built in scale thanks to the circles. A dot, however, is just a dot. I have also had my Telrads for many years and they both work as well as ever.

Olly

[russ]

That's the one i use too, although mine is branded Scopetechnix. I use the dot on the lowest brightness and it does the job just fine for my purposes. I use it in combination with a 32mm 72deg eyepiece which gives a 2deg true field. Using that combo i can track down most faint targets. But on the whole i'm only planet watching, so a red dot is perfect for my needs.

[GazOC]

I've got on on my ED120. I think I paid about £30 for it. It works well, the only issue is that the brightness knob is VERY stiff and turning it can put the alignment out. Thats only a problem if you need to adjust the brightness in mid-session though.

[Darren B]

I have two of these, one on each scope. I just use the red dot on the lowest setting. It works very well for me. What I like about these is I can keep both eyes open when locating objects.

[BlueAstra]

I actually had two of these (by mistake!). I noted they had a different set of reticules on each (one had the small circle and cross that I was after, the other didn't). In the end I found the small dot to be the one I ended up using. Also, anything other than the minimum brightness was too bright. The RDF support is plastic and a bit flimsy for the solid RDF.

[yeti monster]

I think I'm sold on the Telrad, to be honest. I thought that this one was similar, but clearly not similar enough.

[yeti monster]

Telrad now ordered!