More advanced finderscopes out there?

I've been wondering, are there finderscopes out there that are just a little more usable than the standard ones that come with commercial scopes (Meade, Celestron, etc)?

I would love to have a finder scope that could take 1.25" eye pieces and a diagonal. That way, I could use it when looking straight up, and I could also use different eyepieces (which I already have) for different FOVs.

Do people just look for a cheap, small refractor? Or are there speciffic finders out there that take eyepieces?

Thanks for your input!

Lumicon.

University Optics.

Kasai (if you're willing to spend a lot).

Any short-tube f/5 achromat in the 60-80mm range.

Many folks feel the UO finder is the finest readily-available finder on the market.

Best wishes.
-Dan

I owned the UO 8x50 finder for a while and was quite happy with it. Its quite reasonably priced new and availible with both a 1.25" star diagonal or a 1.25" amici correct angle prism.

Watch the Finders section of the classifieds as these do come up from time to time at decent discount.

One thing to note with 1.25" finders is that they do not have focusers so you will have to offset the eyepieces to bring them into focus with other eyepieces that what is supplied.

Hope this helps!

James

Don't worry Christopher, I'm not going to spend that much! $100 to $150 would be OK.

I have a red dot finder (actually mounted one for a gun on the telescope) which I use most of the time. However I want to use a finder scope more, so, my thought was, if I could change the magnification on it, I could use it both as a wide FOV scope, and also use it as a finder for fainter objects, once I get to that level.

I have a pair of 7x50 binoculars... I'll have to dig them out and give it a try.

One more question: the nomenclature for binoculars and finders... I know the 2nd number is the diameter of the main objective. The 1st is the power of magnification?