A finderscope is a device found on top of a primary telescope. It is used for manually aiming the telescope to the desired celestial object.
Usually, a finderscope has a shape of a smaller telescope mounted along the same line of sight as the main telescope.
Without a finderscope, accurately locating objects in the eyepiece is quite challenging. Using a finderscope, this task becomes much more manageable.
- A finderscope is a device with a much smaller magnification and aperture than the main telescope. It also shows a much wider area of the sky.
- There is also a red dot finderscope available on the market: this type of sight tube has zero magnification.
Aligning finderscope and telescope
A finderscope is very important for enjoyable searching of stars, but it can be useless if it is not aligned correctly with the main telescope. The best time to align the finderscope and telescope is in the daytime.
- To make an alignment, the user needs to point the telescope at an object that is about half a kilometre away.
- The object must be positioned in the center of the telescope’s eyepiece.
- Then, the user needs to adjust the finderscope.
- The alignment is complete when an object is in the center of the telescope’s eyepiece and in the center of the finderscope.
