April 13, 2000

Tonight's observing plan was mainly to test out the accuracy and ease-of-use of a cheap Telrad alternative I'd discovered. While looking in Wal-Mart for a cheap Daisy finderscope that I could tear apart to get a reticle eyepiece from, I happened upon the Daisy Electronic Point Sight.

After hearing so much good about Telrads, I decided that the principle behind the operation of this EPS was similar enough to be worth considering. For $10, I figured I'd try it out and see how it performed.

When I got the finder home, I decided to tear apart my old finderscope. It wouldn't reach focus, and I wanted to see if I could use the lenses to make a homemade eyepiece with a decent FOV. I unscrewed the eyepiece from the finder and looked for a way to remove the two lenses. I couldn't find any seams in the plastic, so I tried twisting the front and back of the eyepiece in opposite directions. Nothing. So I looked again. I couldn't see any way to push the lenses out, so I figured they must have been glued in.

Out of desperation, I twisted the eyepieces again, and this time I heard a small popping sound, and the front of the eyepiece loosened. It turns out that the finderscope can reach focus by twisting the front of the eyepiece. I've had the telescope for over 6 years (bought it used at a garage sale), and never knew about that. Apparently, dust had sealed shut the focuser for all this time!

So now, I had two finderscopes for the price of one! After hot-gluing the EPS to the top of the telescope and aligning it with some distant trees, I was ready for nightfall.

As twilight came, I setup my scope outside and waited for stars to appear. The Moon was high overhead, so I thought I'd take a look at it while waiting for darkness. I turned on my EPS, aimed at the moon, then looked through the eyepiece, and behold, there was the Moon! Of course, the Moon is a pretty big object, and didn't provide much of a test. That would come soon enough.

While I had the Moon in view, I threw in my 12.5mm Kellner and Orion 2X barlow and took a peek. With the not-yet-dark sky reducing some of the glare of the moon, I was able to make out quite a bit of detail. I even saw the sunlight glinting off some of the high peaks around a few of the craters on the southern limb of the terminator. Not being an avid lunar observer, I can't tell you which craters, but it was a breathtaking sight nonetheless.

By this time a few stars were popping into view. The obvious target was Sirius. I turned on the EPS again, moved the scope until the red dot was right on top of Sirius, then looked through the eyepiece. Not quite dead-on center, but it was in the field of view! This was fun! With my old finderscope, I had to look for a blurry star, try to get it in the middle of the FOV (no crosshair), and then look through the eyepiece and cross my fingers. No more!

I decided to really put my EPS to the test. Knowing that the open cluster M41 was about a third of the way between Sirius and e CMa, I aimed the scope to the approximate position, and looked through the eyepiece once again. Bingo! It was still faint due to the combination of twilight and moonglow, but I could still make out several faint stars.

I decided to get my brother (he was in the house) and have him try it out. In the past, he always had trouble finding anything in my telescope, because of the poor quality of views through the old finder. After a 30-second tutorial in how the EPS worked, I pointed the scope to a random position and told him to find Sirius, using the EPS. Bang! He nailed it first try. So I had him try several more objects, and he hit all of them dead-on! Was he ever excited!

That was about all I had planned for this evening, but the sky was so nice and clear, that it was a shame to waste it. Leo had the Moon tucked between his paws and was playing with it high in the SW sky, so I knew I wouldn't be able to continue my quest to find galaxies. But the glare shouldn't affect my ability to split a few doubles...

So I pointed to Mizar, and was able to cleanly split the double. Both appeared pale-blue or white, and not much color difference was noted between them.

I also took a peek at g Leo. Even with the close proximity of the Moon, the striking color contrast between blue and yellow stars was a fine sight to behold.

I skipped viewing the Beehive (M44) tonight because of the moon's presence, but I did take a peek at Berenice's Hair. Objects like this really make me want to buy a 40mm eyepiece...

I got really brave and decided to try for M101 (I haven't seen it yet). I carefully star-hopped from Mizar to where it would be located, but only saw empty space where M101 should be. I'll need to try again on a darker night.

By this time, the cool night air was starting to affect my viewing and my eyepieces, so I decided to call it a night. I'm really pleased with my EPS and consider it to be about the best $10 I ever spent. In another week or so, weather permitting, the moon will no longer be a hindrance and I'll try once again to capture those elusive galaxies.