EZ Finder II or Telrad

Need help deciding between Orion’s EZ Finder II or a Telrad. I was leaning towards the EZ Finder mainly because I can mount it directly to the dovetail base on my 10” Orion dob. On the other hand, with the Telrad, I would still have use of my existing magnified finder scope. Any comments and or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Paul

IMHO, all you'll need will be a Telrad and a good set of charts... 8)
(I don't see why you would need a magnified finder in addition to your Telrad... once you have your Telrad & your scope aligned, you should be able to find pretty much anything without it being magnified, but if you must, you could have them both...)

But of course, this is just my opinion, and YMMV.


Clear skies! 8)

>>>Need help deciding between Orion’s EZ Finder II or a Telrad. I was leaning towards the EZ Finder mainly because I can mount it directly to the dovetail base on my 10” Orion dob.
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Hi Paul:

I have a 10 inch Asian DOB that I frequently use. It has both a Telrad and the original magnifying finder.

As far as the Telrad vs the EZ-finder, the Telrad is superior for a couple of reasons. First, it has a redicule instead of just a red dot. These are rings that are half a degree, 2 and 4 degrees in diameter. These are very handy for gauging distances from guide stars, definitely the best unit power finder available IMHO.

The second advantage is that it uses inexpensive and readily available AA batteries. These have a long life so that if you accidentally leave the unit on, it will probably still work every after weeks or months. Most red dot finders use watch batteries which will be dead rather soon after being left on.

But in any event, keeping the magnifying finder is important IMHO. Telrads are useful under dark skies but a magnifying finder is still a big help if one is really looking for challenging targets.

If your skies are light polluted, then a Telrad is of limited use because there are just not enough guide stars visable. This is where the magnifying finder is most important because it lets you go much deeper with your finder and find enough guide stars to accurately position the scope.

A good example of this would be finding M71 in Saggita. From a dark sky, Saggita is quite visable so with a Telrad one can point the scope accurately enough to find it in a low power eyepiece. But with urban light pollution, Saggita is not visable and Altair in Aquilia can be used for the star hop to first find Saggita. Then M71 can be placed right in eyepiece and one can hop on to M27 when finished.

On my 10 incher, the Telrad fits nicely between the magnifying finder and the focuser.

Jon

Telrad, and here is one more reason, there are plenty of charts available with the Telrad in mind online. When I was starting out it was the second best purchase I made within the first 5 years, my 8" dob was the best purchase and once I got a Telrad, I really got to where I could make the best use of the scope.