[Chaos-l] Screw-eye finder for ETX

[Jon Stewart-Taylor]

Hi all.  We were given an ETX 70.  If you're not familiar with it,  
it's a Very Short focal length "go to" refractor, mass-marketed by  
Meade and often priced below $200.  For that price, it's actually a  
pretty decent "porta-scope" (i can get it and a photo-tripod on the  
back of my scooter, for example).  However, aligning it during setup  
so that you can use the "go to" feature is a pain in the butt.  And,  
despite the  scope's 3 degree field of view, you  can't really use it  
without either aligning it or using a finder.

Being Very Short on funds, i built a quick-and-dirty finder out of a  
dowel and 2 screw-eyes.  Total cost was under $2.00 not counting the  
spray paint (left over from another project) and packing tape to mount  
it on the scope.  I cut three segments about 4 inches long from the  
dowel, glued them together in a pyramid, and spray-painted it black.   
Then i screwed (duh) the screw-eyes into the top dowel at either end.

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Next i took the scope outside and wiggled it around until i found an  
easily-recognizable tree branch. I set the finder on top, adjusted the  
height of the screw-eyes so i could see the branch through them, and  
taped the whole thing in place.  Here's a view from the end (but from  
an angle so you can see both screw-eyes, rather than looking through  
them):

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That night i took it out, and it worked like a charm.  Since the eyes  
are silver, shining my red light on them makes them visible, but not  
enough to mess with my dark adaptation. I was easily able to get the  
alignment stars in the main scope's field of view, and had the ETX  
aligned faster than ever before.

So, there you have it.  A quick cheap finder, suitable for finding  
bright stuff.  That's all i needed for the ETX.

J.
-- 
Jon Stewart-Taylor:  joncst at earthlink.net
Chapel Hill Astronomy: http://www.rtpnet.org/chaos
Cape Fear Astronomy: http://www.capefearastro.org/