Home > Consumer Reviews > Telrad Finder Sight

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.

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.

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.

Spot light operators in the entertainment industry will wonder how they ever worked without this great invention. Though not its intended purpose, the Telrad makes for a great spot light sight. Works very well on shows that don't allow lasers and shows that require you to hit those immediate bumps without ghosting. Great for concerts, ice shows, and other productions that require spots. Before the show just spot a wall irised as small as possible, set the sight, and you're ready for the show. The small ring is usually the smallest iris possible and the large ring is usually the largest iris possible. Try it. You won't regret it.

The telrad finder is a very simple, well designed instrument used to locate astronomical objects quickly. Before I purchased one, I spent a lot of time trying to locate objects. Now its reduced to minutes or a few seconds. Just make sure it 's centered before using, which is a simple task. Buy one! You won't regret it.