TELESCOPE TIPS

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TELESCOPES & ASTRONOMY

BACKYARD VIEWING - GENERAL
USER'S TIPS & HINTS
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Finderscopes

It's always best to set up your finderscope during the day. It's a lot easier because if you do it at night, on a star, you may not be looking at the same star through the finderscope as you are through the telescope. During the day, find something small (in the field of view) you can focus on through the telescope only. Once you have done this, correct the finderscope to be pointing at the same thing. If you can lock or tighten your axis's, do this before adjusting the finderscope so the telescope doesn't move while adjustment is made. Have patience in working the knobs on some finderscopes, an exact finderscope which has the object perfectly in the crosshairs makes observing so much easier. Finderscopes can be a pain in the butt! Even some telescopes for over $800 come with highly bumpable, small aperture finderscopes. They need to be realigned after the slightest bump! We find putting a piece of plastic sticky tape on the finderscope helps greatly in holding it in one position once it's aligned.

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A lot of finderscopes have an aperture stop restricting the light allowed through the small scope. This can be removed for looking at dimmer images. Don't drop the lens while unscrewing the front end!

Magnifications

It's always best to start with the lowest magnification eye piece. It's the one with the highest number in millimeters. A lower magnification eyepiece will have a wider field of view, and the image will be brighter. The bigger field of view will give a wider area to find the object. Once the object is centered at this magnification, then increase to a higher magnification by increments.

If you don't know the magnifications of your eyepieces, go to