My RDF's too bright

[osbourne one-nil]

My lovely new Sumerian travel dob came supplied with a Baader Skysurfer III red dot finder. It's very lightweight and an ideal match for my scope, but even at its lowest light setting, it's far too bright (for my taste anyway). Has anyone managed to reduce the light intensity of an RDF? I suppose I could just put something over the LED section; a bit of old film perhaps, but has anyone tried this?

I do prefer my Williams Optics RDF, but it's a bit bigger, although I coujld live with that. However, it's currently mounted on my old Intelliscope and I'm not sure how I'd get it to mount onto a timber secondary cage which is less than half an inch thick. Any ideas?

[John]

Hi,

I might be mistaken but that does not look quite like the Baader Skysurfer III to me - the Baader is similar but has a larger diameter (30mm) lens. My Skysurfer III is set about right re: brightness and adjusts from invisible to too bright.

My Skysurfer III is shown amongst my other RDF's here:

http://stargazerslounge.com/members-equipment-gallery/127483-red-dot-finders.html

If you decide to uprgade then I'd reccommend the Rigel Quikfinder or the Telrad (also shown in that photo) which have a more useful reticule pattern and have a very fine brightness adjustment.

[osbourne one-nil]

I think you're right - it's just an RDF isn't it. Perhaps the skysurfer would be better...I'll look into it.

I've used both Telrads and Quickfinders in the past, and liked them both. I think the Telrad would be just too big to mount on the available space, but the Quickfinder might be a good option as it's more vertical than horizontal so would put less stress on the mounting.

I could always go for a standard finder...or a green laser....or an Ethos?!