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Load image into Gallery viewer, Telrad Finder Sight
  • Load image into Gallery viewer, Telrad Finder Sight
Vendor
Telrad

Telrad Finder Sight

4.7
Regular price
€84,00
Sale price
€84,00
Regular price
€138,00
Sold out
Unit price
per 
Save 39% (€54,00)
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  • Tracked Shipping on All Orders
  • 14 Days Returns

Description

  • The easiest way to aim a telescope. The view seen through the window of the Telrad is continuous with the sky around it, not magnified or upside down.

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Customer Reviews

HOW TO FIX A BROKEN OFF TAB I have owned several of these over the years and use them 90% of the time in lieu of my 7 x 50 finder (this is for 5 inch refractor and 10.2 inchmodified Maksutov). The advantages are a wide field for starhopping and the reticle which gives me a scale in one degree increments. A magnifying finder is still helpful when you're searching for a Messier object that will show up as a fuzzy in such a finder. As others have noted, it is larger than it needs to be. If mounted on the down-side of a scope for a longer time in a hot climate, the tape holding the unit to the scope is liable to loosen and the Telrad drop off. I therefore use bungee cords around the scope and through the Telrad (over the base) to make sure it stays in place. If you need more such tape, just get double-sided tape from an auto supply store (used for rear view mirrors). The Achilles heel of Telrad are the four plastic tabs on the box that insert into the base. Eventually they fatigue and break off. You then have the option: buy a whole new Telrad OR buy a plastic ruler - one of the stiff ones - and use a source of heat, such as soldering iron - to cut out a rectangle of plastic from the ruler (use the remaining tabs to guide the replacement's size) and put it in place by melting its edges to the Telrad where the old one was. Back in business. 4Decent LED Finder Scope but baldy needs some updates! This Telrad is quite likely the most popular finder sight on the market. In my version, you install two AA batteries inside a battery clip in the long rectangular front of the sight and then flip the switch on the right side about 210 degrees around before you begin to see three red LED generated rings. The rings act like concentric rings on a bulls eye target pattern to put your celestial target right in the center. And the brightness of the rings is adjustable from the power knob on the right. You can go from extremely bright to incredibly dim so that your night vision will not be ruined. Unfortunately, you have to rotate the power lever about 210 degrees before you even see the red rings. (which is why one star is knocked off) The Telrad also has three adjustable screws in the back for aligning the rings with what you see at the eyepiece. These are fairly easy to figure out and you can be up and in business in less than five minutes when you first install the Telrad.Speaking of install, you also receive a base that can be installed with the included adhesive strips or drilled for nuts and bolts. The Telrad then sockets down into the two slits and you tighten two thumbscrews to keep it in place. Decent system that works fairly well and if you are careful, you can even preserve your alignment if you have to take the Telrad off and then reattach it at a later date. And you can buy additional risers for the Telrad (that are not included) to raise the sight two inches or four inches off the optical tube of the telescope so your cheek does not have to become cold when looking through the device.The flaws of the Telrad would be that it is simply too large and too heavy for a 2014 device. As I understand it, they have been making this device since the late 1970s with almost no changes. But, what it really needs is an update to Telrad 2.0, a smaller, sleeker and lighter version. The rotating power switch on the right side also has to be turned almost 210 degrees or so, before the LED rings even become apparent. But probably, the most annoying problem with the Telrad is the manner in which the glass fogs over. Because the lower body portion of the Telrad is usually warmer than the upper glass, and the glass receives the cool night air on it, it will fog up faster than a London night when Sherlock Holmes is chasing a suspect. And that means you have to install a dew heater strip or try one of several other wonky methods to prevent the effect. (which why I am dinging it one star)Overall, a nice sight but with some annoying design problems. I do believe this device is ripe for being remade into a much better unit which could be lighter, smaller and without the fogging problems.Update - August, 2016 - I have since purchased a right angle correct image (RACI) 9 x 50 finder scope from Orion Telescopes to go with my Orion XT10G dobsonian and it is much nicer than the Telrad (and more expensive, sadly). The great thing with the RACI scope is that if your scope is pointed up at the zenith, it is SO much more comfortable to look through than contorting your back to bend down and look up through the Telrad. The RACI scope is also much more resistant to dew and moisture than the Telrad. Because of this, the Telrad is now in the closet and I have a feeling it will not be coming out anytime soon. 3If it's up there the Telrad finder sight helps you find it ... easily!!! Works Like a charm.I have five different finder scopes and this one is the best so far. Super easy to use. Aligns real quick. Bright, large target in the view makes it easy to see where you are pointing.I had it lined up and ready in less that 1 minute. Basically pointed my scope to Jupiter and centered it in the eyepiece. Tweaked the three adjusting knobs on the finder to align and good to go. Way easier to align that other sights I own. Same simple method as used to center the primary mirror on a Newtonian/reflector. Spent the next few minutes just randomly star hopping and every time I hit the center FOV. Very impressed as to how much easier it was to locate night sky objects. I spend an extra 10 seconds at the end of viewing to remove the finder from my scope. Next time it's used it still stays good without having to adjust a thing.The base fits easily and quickly to the scope by simply using the supplied sticky pads. This to me was a little disappointing, but some people may prefer it that way. Anyway, I chose to not use the sticky pads and instead screwed the base onto my scope. The base (and sight) are made of plastic which made the mount easy to drill. Quickly removed my existing dove mount from the scope, drilled a couple of holes in the Telrad base, and screwed it onto where the dove mount used to be.Sight is also powered by 2 AA batteries which I think is great. Pretty much every household has a handy pack of AA's going around. Very quick and easy to replace the batteries if your sight loses power. Now if my sight died and I was to look around the house for a pack of CR 2032 batteries (which most other sights use) then I would be up the creek.Also the sight does seem quite large when you first open the box. Comes in at 8 inches long, 5 inches high (including the base) to the tip of the viewer, and 2 inches wide. In comparison I would say that it is around twice the size of an EZ finder II. Although it does seem big it is light in weight. Have not tried it on my EQ mounted scope but I think it would not effect the counter balance.Except for my little dislike on the sticky tape mount method I overall love this sight and would recommend it. 5does the job well and for the right price. It's light years (pardon the pun) ahead of the sight that came attached to my Celestron Astromaster 130EQ for several reasons. For one, the brightness is adjustable so I can actually make it dim enough to still see anything through the scope. It's also two concentric rings instead of dots so I put the ring around what I'm aiming at instead of obscuring the object with a dot and wondering whether it's actually aligned or I just can't see it because the dot is too bright. Lastly, being a reflex sight instead of two illuminated dots I can still use it with both eyes open.One thing I wish is that it was smaller. It's really long and when you open it up to install the battery you'll see an absurd amount of empty space inside. I suppose having the mount longer makes it more naturally align itself to the curvature of the scope, but if that's the reason for it's length, they could have made the mount long and left the sight shorter.Pro-tip: Mount it first with zip ties around your telescope's tube. The provided double-sided tape is VERY sticky and it's likely you'll want to move it around a couple times before settling on a final spot. 4Easy of use and durablity Telescope alightment, I bought a automatic tracking scope from celestron and their little dot finder alway gave me double images this thing is great. I have had one of these on my dobsonian for about seven years with no issues o I purchased a second one. This makes it nice as the dobsonian is a manual scope I can look through the sight and get the same visual alignment to find objects. The only draw back to these are if you cannot see it without a visual aid you will not see it with this, you have to star hop or have a go to scope and use this for alightment. It is also very large on a small scope. 5Spotlight operators friend I use it for spotlight operations in theatre 5A Brilliant Solution The biggest problem with telescope finderscopes is that you are always trading magnification for field of view. I really did not want to abandon my 9x50 Celestron finder (which is really nice), so I bought the Telrad. Mounting it on a traditional tube should be trivial. In my case, I have a half-Serrurier truss Dobsonian. There is no where to stick it with the enclosed sticky tape. So I machined a base from red oak (yes you read that right, red oak in a CNC mill) that the Telrad's base attaches to with 8-32 machine screws. (Yes, you can tap red oak, but I intend to make one out of acetal, now that the dimensions are properly sorted out.)Once installed, aligning the red circles with my finderscope and the scope was trivial. This will make finding objects so much easier. Telrad to get in the right part of the sky; finder to get more exact; low power eyepiece in the telescope. Bang!My only criticisms are that it is much larger than it needs to be. When you install the AAA batteries inside, it is clear that this unit could be made several inches shorter and perhaps an ounce or two lighter. There is a lot of unused space in there.I may well buy these for my other two scopes, which have conventional tubes and should be just peel and stick. 5Makes finding DSOs so much easier Easily the best tool for non-GoTo telescopes you can buy. This makes star hopping so much easier than trying to focus on a tiny portion of the sky through a finderscope. Every dobsonian should have one of these. Telrad also makes a set of star charts that show you where to place the bullseye n the sky to see your target.Battery life is extremely long in this thing. I found out by accident that it will last for at least a week powered on, and when turned off when not in use it'll go for long enough that I've forgotten when I last had to change them. 5TELRAD telescope finder -- Essential gear for learning astronomy For learning astronomy this is a great accessory... check that -- essential gear.Factory supplied finders are often like small 8x50 telescopes, often providing a cross hair reticle for centering on an object, but when used at night it's like looking through a mailing tube for a cat in a coal bin. Or a needle in a hay stack. High-powered binoculars can work better for finding things, but fall short on helping you position your telescope.The Telrad is square and bulky, it provides NO magnification, it has a goofy dimmer switch for the illuminated reticle. It is not sexy looking taped to your telescope.But it works fantastically. Reason 1) the unmagnified wide field of view means What You See Is What You Get (wysiwyg). And what you see now makes sense -- it matches your star chart/planisphere. Reason 2) the illuminated reticle (dimmable) enables you to center your telescope on your object easily, quickly.This finder needs to be aligned just as any finder scope needs to be BEFORE viewing. Unfortunately the illuminated reticle is not visible for daytime alignment, so wait until dusk and pick a known bright star (Polaris, Altair, Vega, etc) or easy to identify object such as the moon, an evening planet, even a distant smokestack with blinking lights.This Telrad is about the same size as the 8x50 finder on my Celestron C8. 5Works on a Celestron C90 Mak With a little bit of improvising you can mount this on a smaller scope. It is big, but its extremely easy to use, and to zero your scope. The dinky finder scope included with the c90 is a throw away item. Pretty much useless due to it wont hold a steady zero and constantly needs adjusting. I had originaly bought the telrad for my Celestron 8 starhopper dobson, a really good beginner scope but heavy and fairly impossible to use for astrophotography. I have the c90 on the heavy duty Celestron AltAz mount, Im shopping around for a decent equatorial, either the CG5 or the Ioptron smartstar Tm Pr 8419 for when I venture into astrophotography. 5
Telrad Finder Sight

Telrad Finder Sight

4.7
Error You can't add more than 500 quantity.
Regular price
€84,00
Sale price
€84,00
Regular price
€138,00
Sold out
Unit price
per 
Save 39% (€54,00)