Telescope Reviews: Re: Got my Scope, First Light Report

Instead of the RACI, which will cost at least $100, I recomend a telrad or rigel quikfinder, these only cost $40 and are a good companion to your visual finder. Once you have the goto working, you will find the telrad is the fastest finder for simply nailing the alignment stars, and once the goto is alligned you wont need to look through the finder anyway. For many DOB users without goto, the 1-2 punch is a telrad and RACI finder, using the telrad to get in the zone, and the RACI to spiral search for the fuzzy spot. A RACI on its own is the most annoying thing to use, because when you are looking through the finder, your head is not looking at the sky, so getting your bearings straight is even HARDER than it is with a straight finder.
I found that once I got my 10"dob (former main DSO scope), I would JUST use the telrad and then spiral with my widest field 2" EP, and not even bother mounting the finderscope. With my 8" "R" (pre-lawsuit designation of ACF) OTA, I put a basic red dot finder I had laying around on it because telrad bases were out of stock at the time, and wound up never upgrading. When I got my 11" OTA, I had the telrad base I purchased for the 8" (but never got around to installing it), I put that on the 11" and I have not remounted the 50mm finder since then.

$60+ saved on that investment (more if you were to get a new finder bracket) will almost cover the 56mm, but you would still need the diagonal. 56mm makes sense as your first 2" ep for many reasons, it is the least expensive, it will not duplicate any of the magnifications you have in your 4000 set (and it completes the whole set of 4000 super plossls), and it will have the same 52 deg field that most of the 4000 plossls have (except 40mm which is 44deg, same area of sky as 32mm at 52deg). This will not only give you an exit pupil worthy of narrowband filters, or unfiltered views in dark skies, but it will also POSTPONE the tempation to upgrade to superwides and ultrawides. The moment you upgrade that 32mm or 40mm range EP to a 2" with wider field, thats when it all starts to go downhill, and you start getting more and more widefields and your plossls end up for sale.

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Cats (tubes): C11xlt, 8"LX"R". Orion Apex90
Newts: GSO 10"f5dob, Starhoc8-4
APOs: TV101 AT66ED
ACHROS: C102, C80 f11, 60f9, A&F20-60x60
Mounts: G11G, GM8G, CG5-RA, SV M1GG
Apogee U8300M Optec IFW
SBIG: ST1001E, ST7ABG, ST8EABG, Pixcel255
DSIpro DSIc
handfull of binos, 5 cases of EPs

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