Astromania Guide Scope 50mm Compact Deluxe Finder Guide Scope Kit with Double Helical Focuser Compatible with 1.25 inch Eyepiece for Astronomical Telescope & Auto Guiding Cameras for Astrophotography

This is a wonderful device and would be so at double the price. Build quality is outstanding. The focuser employs both a drawtube and helical unit, for coarse and fine focus respectively. Both have fine gradations so focus can be dialed in directly. The construction is metal throughout, and the aluminum adjuster screws have nylon tips that will not mar the satin black finish of the tube. Coatings on the cemented 60mm achromat are a deep green and very uniform. One assumes this is basically a binocular objective so it remains to be seen how well it will perform at high power visually, but of course as an auto-guider or finder such considerations are irrelevant. One complaint, the drawtube inner surface is quite shiny and required flocking. The unit can be used with a prism diagonal if one inserts a Barlow between it and the diagonal. This allows the scope to function as a high-power visual right-angle guide scope. Note however that the unit will not focus at infinity with any diagonal unless a Barlow is inserted before the diagonal. When I insert a Meade 2x Barlow and prism diagonal + 40mm Plossl eyepiece, I measure a 4mm exit pupil, giving an effective f/ratio of 10 and effective focal length of 600mm, which is right in line with a typical 60mm x 700mm traditional guide scope. One can substitute a roof prism diagonal for a naturally oriented image. Used this way the scope becomes a passable spotting scope. The one obvious improvement to the scope would be to make the tube from two pieces, one of which could be removed to allow focus with a diagonal without inserting a Barlow. This is a minor point in my opinion, one has a finder after all for low power views - this is a versatile, well-made device and I highly recommend it.

This finder scope was exactly what I was looking for, it was a significant upgrade over the scope I had previously. I had to replace the custom mechanism for the telescope to a dovetail connector base to make it fit, but most accessories use that standard dovetail, so I would have needed to do so anyway. Once I've replaced the base with the dovetail one, this fit perfectly.The image through this finder is clear, it is easy to align (although, you'll have to align it as perfectly as you can on as far of an object as you can). I've used it a few times for finding planets and stars and have had no issue with viewing the night sky in terms of brightness, and finding what I wanted to focus on.I've seen a few reviews indicating it would be nice to have crosshairs to make it easier to see the centre, but on the scopes I've seen those crosshairs, they're on the side of the eyepiece, so it should be possible to add your own, it's also better to be able to choose crosshairs that are visible at night, because quite a few have crosshairs that are effectively invisible at night on the dark sky.Just to note, this is not an all-in-one, the eyepiece adapter is a standard one that fits 1.25" eyepieces, so make sure you have an eyepiece of your own. This has the upside of making the magnification of the scope modifiable as desired.

I am quite surprised actually. I bought this because vendors of named brands were all out and I decided to give it a try. It is exactly as expected, a decent, solidly built, 60mm guide scope. It has plenty of back focus for my guide camera (I have not tried it with an eyepiece), the focuser is a bit stiff but adequate. I used it for an entire night guiding and it did very well. The mount fit into an existing dovetail show, and was pretty easy to align (though for guiding I really did not need precision there). The only negative is that it came packed inadequately -- the top alignment screw head poking out of the thin cardboard. But there was no damage to anything inside, the scope itself was well packed. But this top screw rested directly against the box top (which is thin). But overall, a very nice guide scope for a very good price.

My wife purchased this for me, and I am writing this review. This is being used as a guidescope on two telescopes, a 127mm APO refractor and a 9.25" SCT. There were two issues out of the box. The objective was installed at the factory backwards. I realized this the first time it was used. The image was extremely distorted and fuzzy. The objective is easily removed by unscrewing the front dew shield. I reversed it and voila, a nice clear image. The second issue is that the inside surface of the focuser tube is very shiny and smooth. This created glare on very bright objects. I coated the surface with ultra-flat paint to correct this. Ironically, the rest of the interior of the ota has a very flat non-reflective surface. Otherwise, the guidescope, rings and helical focuser work fine. Shame on Astromania for poor QC with an otherwise good product. This is a very sturdy and functional item once the flaws were corrected. The focuser tube locks firmly in place using the thumb screws For me this was an easy fix and was quicker than returning it. Astromania needs to monitor their QC program better. Three vs four stars . . . I was on the fence, but gave the extra star since the guidescope is constructed of aluminum, feels solid and is a good value when the optics are installed correctly.