Trouble lining up my finder scope...

Just got my orion skyquest xt6 classic and I have it tightened to the max but can't get it exactly aligned with my telescope. Anyone else ever have trouble with this? It's close, but i want perfect.

Just got my orion skyquest xt6 classic and I have it tightened to the max but can't get it exactly aligned with my telescope. Anyone else ever have trouble with this? It's close, but i want perfect.
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ALigning finders can be frustrating, a couple of things come to mind though I think Rick covered it nicely.

1. The finder dovetail is not positioned properly. There is normally some slop in the screws so that the dovetail may not be pointing in the right direction. Carefully loosening these and then pointing the dovetail eyeing the dovetail for squareness may solve your problem. As Rick says, take care in making sure you don't drop anything down the tube or on the secondary mirror.

2. It maybe that the inverted image of the finder is confusing you.

The way I align the finder is to first find a bright star or planet naked eye. Then with my longest focal length, widest field of view eyepiece, I move around until it is in the eyepiece and center it.

This might take a few moments, right now probably the easiest to find is the moon. Then I look through the finder and adjust the screws until the target is centered. I check back to the main eyepiece and see if I have moved the scope while adjusting the finder. If so, I recenter target in the scope's eyepiece and then fine tune the finder adjustment.

If I aligned it using the moon, I will normally move to another bright target, Jupiter is good right now, and tweak the finder again.

Jon

Just a few things to add to the already excellent replies:

1. If you have a cross-hair reticle eyepiece, or can borrow one, do so.

2. Don't work with a star or the moon to do the adjusting. Pick a distant street lamp, tree, or insulator on a far away power pole--or something else that does not move, and is during the day when you have lots of light.

3. Before adjusting the position of the dovetail itself, make sure the finderscope is centered all the way back on the o-ring (of you have one) and that the other thumbscrews are set to the center....Then adjust the position of the dovetail to match the object as well as possible. Then tweak with the thumbscrews as needed.

Alex

Just a few things to add to the already excellent replies:

1. If you have a cross-hair reticle eyepiece, or can borrow one, do so.

2. Don't work with a star or the moon to do the adjusting. Pick a distant street lamp, tree, or insulator on a far away power pole--or something else that does not move, and is during the day when you have lots of light.

3. Before adjusting the position of the dovetail itself, make sure the finderscope is centered all the way back on the o-ring (of you have one) and that the other thumbscrews are set to the center....Then adjust the position of the dovetail to match the object as well as possible. Then tweak with the thumbscrews as needed.

Alex