Finderscope

A 50mm right-angle finderscope mounted on a 150mm telescope.
Tour guide points out the double Finderscope on the 24.5 inch Cassegrain Telescope at the Goldendale Observatory State Park.

A finderscope is an accessory sighting device used in astronomy and stargazing, typically a small auxiliary refracting telescope/monocular mounted parallelly on a larger astronomical telescope along the same line of sight. The finderscope usually has a much smaller magnification than the main telescope, thus providing a larger field of view, useful for manually pointing (a.k.a. "slewing") the main telescope into a roughly correct direction that can easily place a desired astronomical object in view when zooming in. Some finderscopes have sophisticated reticles to more accurately aim the main telescope and/or even perform stadiametric measurements.


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