I recently bought a Celestron AstroMaster 130 as our first family scope. We are pleased with it so far. The only thing I am not too happy about is the "finderscope" it came with. It is one of those "red dot" StarPointer things that either I do not know how to use or it doesn't help at all with pointing the scope. I am considering buying another finderscope for it and I am interested to hear what you all suggest.

I looked at the Celestron website for accessories and found they have one of those 5mW green laser finders ($100 MSRP) or a 9x50 with 5.8 degrees FOV (about $60 MSRP). Anyone out there with personal experience on these two choices? or other finderscopes you would suggest for this particular scope? x30 better than x50?

Thanks in advance!

With both binoculars and finderscopes, the first number is the magnification and the second number is the aperture in millimeters. So a 9x50 finderscope is essentially a 50mm telescope with a magnification of 9 times. With a larger aperture, you will see more objects and they will appear brighter, but there will also be a smaller true field-of-view.

Your red dot finder should be fine, but cheap ones can be upgraded. It does not appear to use a standard base, but you can buy a dovetail mounting base for any standard Synta (Chinese) made finder for about $13 from Orion.

Any finder on this page will work with the dovetail stated above.

Overview:

Red dot finders are very convenient as they show the real sky with a dot superimposed. I recommend them for ease of use and accuracy.

Straight-through magnifying finders are usually 30, 40, or 50mm. They are small spyglasses mounted on your telescope. They offer a restricted field of view as they magnify, but they have crosshairs (tough to see in the dark) and because the gather more light than the eye, you can see more stars and fuzzies.

Right angle finders allow the above at a comfortable angle.

Illuminated finders have red glowing crosshairs. It combines the desirable features of both magnifying and non-magnifying viewfinders. Some are even right angle finders, too!

Telrad finders are a very nice improvement to red dot finders as they have three concentric circles, like a bullseye, rather than a single bright dot. But they are far too large and clunky for your small scope. A smaller alternative is the Rigel Quikfinder, which should work fine on your scope.

I do not suggest buying things directly from the Celestron website, they tend to overprice them.

Overall, as a compromise between size and usefulness, I'd go with an Orion 8x40 illuminated finder with the appropriate base.

Also, congrats on your scope! You have a nice beginner scope that has a true parabolic mirror rather than a cheap spherical mirror, no "correcting" doubler lens, and an adequate mount! I sense you'll be hooked in no time.

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Siguy,

Thanks for your quick reply! We are enjoying our scope very much! I do shop around so no worries on buying from Celestron website (unless they offer something special). The red dot finder that came with the scope seems to be permanently attached to it. I can't see a way to remove it. I personally think it is bad since it floods the plastic/glass with the dot with so much light that all I see is a blob of red when I turn it on and not really the sky with a red dot superimposed. Then again, I am not sure how far from the red dot finder my eye/face needs to be. Maybe I don't know how to use it. A red dot replacement sounds appealing at less than $40 but I would be nice to test drive one to see if it does it for me.

I did check out the Orion website before posting and that is why I wanted some suggestions. Your comments and overview helped a lot! I do not want to overkill but the 9x50 Right-Angle sounds really good except it doesn't have the illuminated crosshairs (any out there with right-angle and illuminated?). I can just imagine trying to look at an object high up in the sky and trying to look through a straight finderscope

Right angle finderscopes

One last question, where do I attach the dovetail base (Orion Dovetail Base for Finder Scope #07214 $12.95) on my telescope? is it on top of the rings that hold the tube?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Overly bright dots are a problem in cheaper red dot finders. Is there a way to dim it?

An illuminated 50mm RA finderscope is kind of overkill. ScopeStuff sells them, but they cost almost as much as your telescope! You may want to go with one or the other, illuminated or right angle.

Looking at your options, I'd still go affordable and choose either a 6x30 or 8x40 illuminated finder.

The dovetail base needs to attach to the tube. I have not actually seen the model you have up close, but you may need to drill holes into the tube.

__________________
"Eccentric" is just a nicer way to say "schizophrenic".

One tip is to keep both eyes open when looking through the red dot finder. One eye looks through the finder and the other eye views the sky directly.

I also find it helpful to pulse the red dot off and on. That is how I align my platform to Polaris, for example.

I would check to see if there is a knob that dims the dot, and if so dim it so that you can just barely see it.

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"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

Thank you for your replies Siguy and Aurora.

RE: Drilling the tube... wouldn't that throw metal shavings inside the scope endangering the mirror? It sounds scary :-S

I've got a red-dot finder with my Celestron scope and it's far better, in my opinion, than a finderscope. But you do need to keep both eyes open for it to work!

I have the dimmer control on the lowest setting otherwise it does drown out the starlight.

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:)

Hi Meeko

I had one of those with my old celestron
Are you sure it can not slide out? Mine used to slide on and off, after so many slides it did get a little loose. Also on the finder itself there should be a knob with a white dot on it, by turning this you can dim it, I think these take watch batteries, you can remove this

Hope this helps

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Also I forgot to mention, I do agree with Sp1ke, I found my red dot finder better than my new finderscope on my Mak Cas scope. It is much easier to find and get spot on the object with the red dot

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Thank you Sp1ke and Starchild... I don't see how I can remove the stardot finder that came with my AstroMaster 130 since some of its base seems to be molded into the front plastic piece that the cover snaps into. There are some screws which I will unscrew and see where it gets me. I do not have a dimmer or it must be well hidden.
I am attaching some pics of the finder so you can see how it is mounted on my scope in case things have changed at Celestron. There is also a fussy picture of it turned on so you can see how flooded the viewer gets when it is on.

Attached Images

StarDot.jpg (91.9 KB, 14 views)

Ive got a red dot finder on my 10 inch Lightbridge and I love it!! It took me a while to work out how to get it aligned to the scope but once I had it sorted, I was very happy with it. Its much better than the finderscope on my old scope, a 6 inch Celestron Dob. I found the cross hairs were too hard to see in the dark. My red dot finder has a few different settings on it, a red cross, a bullseye and a single red dot. I like the red cross the best so far, although I haven't really tried the other settings as yet.

As one other poster mentioned, your red dot finder should slide on and off the scope. I think most scopes have removable finders on them.

Wow that finder looks huge! I haven't seen a finder like that before. It looks like it can't be removed at all, let alone slide on and off. I see what you mean about the red dot flooding the finder with too much red light. I'm wondering though, can the round piece from the inside of the finder be taken out?

If you cannot figure out a way to remove it, then I guess you might just have to deal with it for now. Try keeping both eyes open, like others said, and keep it on lowest brightness. If you get a better finder, then you don't have to use it and you might as well just saw it off.

If you do drill holes for a base, you just want to be careful not to let the shavings fall onto the mirror. It shouldn't be a problem since you have an open-tube Newtonian. If there were a corrector plate sealing the tube, then it would be a problem.

__________________
"Eccentric" is just a nicer way to say "schizophrenic".