Product 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. Three rings are lighted and appear to lie among the stars. The small ring outlines the Moon-sized area seen in the telescope. The large outer ring outlines the area seen in a standard Finderscope. To point your telescope, just look through the Telrad and move the telescope until the rings are centered on the object. The Telrad is 8 inches long. Weighs 11 ounces and mounts on any telescope without drilling any holes. It unlocks from its base for separate storage. Requires 2 AA batteries (not included).

Product Details

• Brand: Telrad
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds

Customer Reviews

A simple finder for amateur telescopes
The Telrad is an easy to use 1x (that is right one power) reflex finder. I use one with my Meade 8" LX200 telescope. The advantage of a reflex finder is that you can aim the telescope at the area you see with your naked eyes. If I had one of these finders when I started out with my first telescope, I would have spent more time looking at objects than looking for them. It can be used as a complement to the "minature telescope" finders, or with a "Go-To" scope as the only finder. How does the Telrad work? it projects three concentric rings of 4, 2 and half a degree on a transparent window that you look through. The key to using it is to point the telescope at a bright object, then align the reticle (rings) to be centered on the object, and then use the rings to point the scope where you want to observe. The biggest advantage is if you aren't on a target, you can see which direction you need to move the scope without having to make the mental calculation... is my image reversed/upside-down, etc.? The one drawback is that you can only use objects (stars) that you can see with the naked eye. That makes it less useful in light polluted areas. The one thing about the Telrad that is a pet peeve, is that it is large. Also, in damp locations, it is suseptable to dew. There are a number of simple solutions to this. Since installing the Telrad on my LX200, I haven't used the 8x50 finder that Meade sells as standard equipment.

A must-have accessory
I purchased the Telrad to add to an Orion Skyquest XT-8 Dobsonian scope. Given that the Dob mount is made for manual star hopping and tracking, ease of hopping around the sky is critical. The Telrad is fantastic!

I mounted my Telrad between the focuser and the finder scope and back just a bit. The Telrad allows you to easily find a bright star and locate other objects relative to it. The brightness of the red finder target can be adjusted easily.

All in all, this should be the first thing you add to a scope like this. It greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the scope and overcomes some of the inherent issues of using a Dob mount.

Best thing happening for astronomers
I got my Telrad finder for Christmas. In March, I took my 6x30 finder off of the telescope. This is a "must have" device! I can hop around faster with this and some Telrad charts, and see more objects than most people can with a computerized mount. Buy one, it's worth every penny.