Gearing up for star hopping

[Muriel Dulieu Holzer]

I would like to do more star hopping and am looking for advice. What are your favorite viewfinders, software, star atlases, learning tools, and/or techniques?

Currently, I use a Telrad or a Rigel depending on the telescope. I have been using SkySafari Pro on my phone/tablet, but I find that it doesn't always show enough stars compared to what I see in the 18". My Pocket Sky Atlas has even fewer stars and does not seem to contain many objects. What do you like to use best?

-Muriel

[John Pierce]

In SkySafari 8 Pro, go into Settings -> On-Demand Data, and load the GAIA Star Database (1.64GB, adds 90 million more stars down to mag 15 or 16).  I suggest doing this over wifi at home, as its a big download.  also make sure the star magnitude limit is set high enough, settings -> stars -> magnitude limit = 16.0

this *will* use more ram in your tablet/phone, probably works best on devices with ~ 4GB RAM...

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[Christopher Kelly]

Hi Muriel.   I feel kinda funny offering advice to someone already so accomplished but here goes.    I’ve been doing astronomy for 50 years this Oct, and all I’ve managed to achieve are the remarkable heights of mediocrity.  Nevertheless…. John is right about using Sky Safari which is my go to tool right off my iPhone.   I max out the stars yet … having so many stars means a lot of complexity and Sky Safari uses adaptive algorithms to vary the stars visible.   I find that confusing when zooming in and having faint stars appear out of nowhere.   For now (using my 4” APO) I trust my high end red dot finder and manually integrate the visible stars to where said object should be.   When I observed more with my C14 I used red dot, then 50mm finder which showed enough stars to interpolate nearly any object without being overwhelmed.   Even when I created finder charts at the Dunlap Observatory, less was more.   OBTW I found the 50mm finder to match the Uranometria 2000 for depth which was helpful.  As for all those stars available in SkySafari, once I find the object I will use the closeup to verify that I’ve got the right object.

I’ve used Astroplanner  yet I can’t seem to make use of the catalogues available and their numerous stars.

Hope this makes sense, yours and others mileage may vary.

 Clears

Chris

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[Alex]

I'm lately practicing the single stage star hopping in the 1 deg FOV of my 12" for up to 20 deg from a naked eye base star using the DIY augmented reality eyepiece gag (posted it here a few back) and my own mobile phone chart software (I'm mobile apps developer). The key, as you have already figured, is the direct match of the EP view with the chart. Since 2009 I've been using my own app with the complete USNO UCAC (2 and later 4) star database down to 16^m rendered on the AMOLED display of my smartphone(s). It works like a charm in any bortle sky as soon as you have the chart and the EP view side by side. The chart on the smartphone is nearly ideal for that, because you can not only match the scale with a flick of a finger, but you can also simply rotate the phone in your hand to match the orientation if your app does not support that. SkySafari is finally almost as capable, so I'm not mentioning my still generally superior in the "at the EP" convenience app for a specific reason.

With practice, you can ID a field in under a second. Thus a 20 deg starhopping track is usually easily under 30 sec using the AR gag. Without it, you would need to look into the phone then into the EP and back. That at best doubles the hopping time. Also, that timing is with the Portaball, a classic (orthogonal axes) Dob might take longer as you might need to struggle with the Alt/Az motions separately making the chain of hops longer. On your huge 18" you can also try holding the phone parallel to the EP FOV for the second eye (depending on your vision) that would roughly resemble my "AR gag" setup and that wat I've been using in the past with my 12" until my vision deteriorated.

The most efficient manual pointing technique is still the TPM (Telrad pattern matching). It's practically instant if you have good knowledge of the starry sky and using the app supporting Telrad properly (not a gimmick as most such apps did when I was last checking). It's arguably still a sort of a two stage star hopping because you might need to hop from known stars to less known stars of the pattern and then after FOV match might need to hop closer to the target again in the main FOV, as the TPM might land you 20-30 arcmin away from the target for multiple reasons until you hone the skill and your Telrad setup. BTW, the latest TPM method advancements is the Quinsight (arguably the Telrad successor with a much larger FOV for TPM and even with the orientation measurements capable target pattern. But in Bortle under 5 a well calibrated Telrad is all you need (assuming deliberate darkness adaptation).

[Alex]

Hey Chris. Perhaps, there is a way to control star density in the given FOV there? In my app I have a popup slider exactly for that remembering the setting per FOV level. The latter, discrete 2x FOV levels, is another superior digital chart feature I have enjoyed since 2009. It solves a lot of confusion cases with automatic dynamic star density you have experienced. Perhaps, ask SkySafari to implement that? But the 16^m stars implementation took them like 15 years...

[Dave Bullock]

I am really really new to this. I was at the TVS H2O site this weekend and I realized I have no idea how to find anything.  My goal over the next 12 months is to figure out star hopping. Suggestions from zero?  

On Jun 15, 2026, at 9:17 PM, Alex <alex.k...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey Chris. Perhaps, there is a way to control star density in the given FOV there? In my app I have a popup slider exactly for that remembering the setting per FOV level. The latter, discrete 2x FOV levels, is another superior digital chart feature I have enjoyed since 2009. It solves a lot of confusion cases with automatic dynamic star density you have experienced. Perhaps, ask SkySafari to implement that? But the 16^m stars implementation took them like 15 years...

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[John Pierce]

On Mon, Jun 15, 2026 at 9:21 PM Dave Bullock <ee...@eecue.com> wrote:

I am really really new to this. I was at the TVS H2O site this weekend and I realized I have no idea how to find anything.  My goal over the next 12 months is to figure out star hopping. Suggestions from zero?  

what worked very well for me was to use a Telrad on the telescope, and turn the 'telrad circles' on SkySafari Pro on my phone or tablet....    Use the search function on SkySafari to center the object you are looking for on the screen, and note the relationship of the bright stars around/near the telrad circles, look through the telrad and aim the scope so you get the same relation.   That should get you within a 1/4 degree of your target, and my default eyepieces for any given scope had a 1/2 degree field of view (for instance, a 18mm ES 82, which is roughly a Nagler, on a 20 inch f/5 Obsession Classic gives just a bit over a 0.5 degree/30 arcminute FOV)

there *are* a few areas of the sky where there's no naked eye visible stars within several degrees, that gets trickier.  And yes, in light polluted environments there aren't many naked eye visible bright stars.

[Alex]

Hey Dave.

I believe there is nothing to learn in classic star hopping technique. It's just that: point to the known star, usually a bright one from the chart close to your target which you can positively ID in the FOV of your hopper instrument, which is usually some optical finder with a large FOV. Figure the direction your target is in that FOV between visible stars, according to the chart, and move your scope in that direction until you can positively ID the second FOV, usually adjacent to the first one so stars in the first FOV overlap with the second a bit. That's called a hop. Repeat until you see the target (or stars which are supposed to be surrounding it) and use the main/correct EP to ID the field magnified (here is when a 16^m chart is the absolute source of truth to leverage for final hops).

The key for the classic star hopping is the good visual memory (to positively match the chart and FOV), which can be aided by implementing a "personal asterism" rule set helping you to match distinct groups of faint stars in the FOV so you can match them on the chart from memory. I believe these asterisms are very individual to dictate them to others (as some published guides try to do), as people have quite different visual memory habits, different instruments, and sky conditions. Better invent your own system of memorization and matching from practice. That's tons of fun, especially with a 100 deg AFOV EP!

With digital charts (especially with the AR setup I have mentioned) it's much easier, as you ID stars on the fly as you go between them scrolling the chart on the screen in parallel. Sometimes it's rivaling even Telrad (TPM) in timing. I think the time for reading "hopping guides" is better spent remembering sky constellations with some app synchronizing the screen/chart normal with the sky direction vector behind it (using accelerometers+magnetometer). That would help finding the chosen base star instantly.

[Alex]

Hey John. That's exactly the TPM method I have mentioned above. I have once tried describing it in all the details here: https://www.dobmod.com/2020/04/tpm-telrad-pattern-matching.html

[Richard Navarrete]

What Alex said. 👍🏼

The issue for me is getting whatever chart I’m using going in the same direction as what I see in the sky. Wagner can do it in his head, I have to turn my chart or screen to match. A correct image finder is very helpful along with a red dot finder.

Richard

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[Jay Freeman]

I kind of hate to pipe up here because most TACos these days have never met me and have no idea whether my advice is good for anything, but I do have an article about star-hopping on my web site, that might contain a few hints useful to some:

https://www.jayreynoldsfreeman.com/Aux/AstroPDFs/StarHopping.html

The article is rather old, from the days of paper charts, and predates more modern equipment such as plate-solvers like PiFinder, and go-to mountings that actually work, like Losmandy's Gemini-2000, but even so ...

My experience with star-hopping includes about 30 000 observations made wiith instruments of apertures from 50 mm (7x50 binocular) to 356 mm (Celestron-14).

Lately I find that PiFinder has in pretty much revolutionized finding celestial objects, and the Gemini-2000 does nearly as well, but is slower.


-- Jay Reynolds Freeman, Deep-Sky Weasel
---------------------
Jay_Reynol...@mac.com
http://JayReynoldsFreeman.com (personal web site)

> On Jun 15, 2026, at 18:01, Muriel Dulieu Holzer <mdu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I would like to do more star hopping and am looking for advice [...]

[Steven R.]

+1 to PiFinder revolutionizing visual thing-finding. Hopper is a functionally similar but different form factor solution.

Cheers,

-Steven

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[Mark Wagner]

Regarding PiFinder (or Hopper, or goto).  Its not star hopping.

To me, the most important first step to star hopping is learn the constellations, so you more easily know the stars.

[Peter Santangeli]

It's all 'shades of grey'.

Some people (definitely me) are cursed with BRUTAL memories. Remembering the minor stars in Eridanus is just never going to happen...

At least with a pi-finder you are actually looking at the sky and moving the scope. Quite different than full Goto. My guess is over time you will memorize more and more. 

pete

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[Richard Navarrete]

That’s me as well. I constantly have to go back to charts to refresh my meager memory. I’ve recently been observing with refractors and all the decent mounts are goto. After decades of star hopping I’m happy to use goto for awhile.

Richard

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[Mark Wagner]

Pete - there are certainly areas of the sky where unaided star hopping is a challenge.  That's what optical finders are for.

[Mark Wagner]

Pete - additionally, I don't believe the original posting was asking  suggestions for electronic finders.

[Alex]

Peter, with a pi-finder you look 100% of your pointing time at its micro screen for push commands, not at the sky. Or am I missing something?

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[Matt Tarlach]

I like a Telrad or basic red-dot finder to start me pointing in the right direction, but then I switch to a 9x50 RACI finder. I have Sky Safari on my tablet (phone screen is too small), configured to show a field of view and limiting magnitude similar to that of the finder, not the main scope. Many DSOs are invisible in the finder (a cheap old Orion, it's fine) but by taking care to align it accurately I can point to the right spot within the star field, and when I switch my eye to the main scope at 100x---Hey Presto! There it is.

I got a rubber-armored shell for the tablet that has a long shoulder strap, so I can easily keep the tablet with me at all times---even climbing a ladder.

[Peter Santangeli]

I don't have a pi-finder, but I have used everything from just a finder scope, to telrads, to DSC (digital setting circle) based, to full goto.

Pi-finder seems to be most like DSC that 'works'. DSC's were always painfully reliant on either polar alignment or some kind of 'mapping', which made them troublesome. Pi finder gets out of that with plate solving.

But it's not the same as full goto. You are out with the scope, pushing it, and typically sighting along the OTA. There is a level of sky awareness that is not there with full goto. At least that's my thinking.

pete

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[Sean McCauliff]

I haven't done much star hopping the last few years.  The advice I received from Albert Highe, a very long time ago, was to just use a larger finder scope.  That many deep sky objects can be seen, if only as a faint fuzzy, in larger finders and then you don't need additional finding steps.  Also many sky atlases will still be valid for finder scopes; Gaia level deepness not required.  For my 15" f/5 I use a Stellarvue 60mm finder. 

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[Peter Natscher]

On my 16" Dob, I do a paper atlas star field review of where my target deep sky object lies (Uranometria, Millennium), then I manually hand push the scope to within a degree or two to where the target object is estimated to be using a Telrad or Starbeam and then find the object with the scope's lowest power ~1.0° fov eyepiece. I engage the scope tracking after manually centering the object in the eyepiece.  With practice, you will be pointing the scope within 1° of where the object lies using a 1X red dot finder. It's actually faster then GoTo. This saves a lot of battery power. GoTo eats up power. You learn the night sky well using this method. Stay manual as long as you can!

On Monday, June 15, 2026 at 6:01:54 PM UTC-7 Muriel Dulieu Holzer wrote:

[Mark]

That's the right advice, from Peter.  And once you get comfortable knowing you're way around it's even quicker (and way more rewarding IMO).

[Alex]

Totally, John, Peter. Our goal in common is having every minute of the outing dedicated for the sky enjoyment while it lasts and learn it further. However, many of us also enjoy tinkering with ancient paper or the most advanced fine machinery for the part of the night time learning their fascinating quirks too. No offence, I enjoy the novelty of the latter while it lasts too :)

[Joel Lee]

On this note, is there a right angled telrad or quikfinder or something similar? Last time I was out I was getting really annoyed with having to kneel or bend over and contort to look through the telrad. I guess a solution would be an illuminated circle finder scope?

On Tue, Jun 16, 2026 at 13:59 Alex <alex.k...@gmail.com> wrote:

Totally, John, Peter. Our goal in common is having every minute of the outing dedicated for the sky enjoyment while it lasts and learn it further. However, many of us also enjoy tinkering with ancient paper or the most advanced fine machinery for the part of the night time learning their fascinating quirks too. No offence, I enjoy the novelty of the latter while it lasts too :)

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[Joshua Hutchins]

There is a telrad dew shield mirror
https://www.highpointscientific.com/telrad-deluxe-hinged-dew-shield-with-mirror-hdc

I tried it for a little bit but didn't like it (which could be
operator error)- you don't have a wide enough field of view to figure
out where it was pointing. Maybe with some practice it'd be usable,
but I went back to kneeling to look from behind my C8.

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[Joel Lee]

Thanks!

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[Peter Natscher]

The Televue Starbeam also operates in right-angle orientation, looking straight into it without getting under it, so you don't need to bend down to get under it like a straight-through finder.

[Peter Santangeli]

My suggestion would be to try one at a star party before buying a right angle.

Personally I find them very disorienting. For me the best technique is the 'two eye' technique. Train yourself to keep both eyes open when using a finder. One eye sights down the tube (zero power) the other through the finder (6-12 power). You can center with the view from one eye enough to get it into the finder field of view then take over with that eye.

This doesn't work if your other eye is staring at the tube. And only half the directions are reversed.

pete

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[Dave Bullock]

I think I need to spend some time learning the constellations as a start. Then I can figure out star maps. 

On Jun 16, 2026, at 2:27 PM, Peter Santangeli <pe...@santangeli.net> wrote:



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[Alex]

Hey, Joel, I have missed what type of telescope you have been using with Telrad (assuming a Dob)? But as Peter said, the core reason of the direct pointing supremacy is that you can see the wide view of the sky which you can coordinate with your body and brain NATURALLY to navigate efficiently and error proof between visible objects towards your target. With any optical finder you have a "dead zone" around the FOV.
By the way, the AR hopping method I have mentioned above is partially fixing that problem by allowing the reverse relation between the chart view and the star view. Instead of going back to the wide hopping stage (low zoom finder) you zoom out your chart a bit to see where is the nearest visible in the main EP FOV asterism to push-to most efficiently and reliably. In my 2009 app I have implemented the "Find nearby" feature exactly for that scenario. Though later it was degraded into a "I'm lazy, no observations plan" feature by extending its "nearby range" to an arbitrary number in the user settings and ignoring the Observation List. :) 

Surely try above suggestions, they actually might work for you with practice, especially when accompanied with a handheld star chart providing the FOV mirroring/rotation controls at hand, so you can use both views side by side and learn how to use their feedback for push-to.

My own method for a Dob is the "Bazuka" style (yes, I shot some in my youth). Dangerous, but actually quite comfortable and efficient target pointing position.

I'm stating that the best location for a Dob is UNDER the Eyepiece! See my blogpost around that image here (excuse my early English "proficiency" weirdness there).

To ease the kneeling I'm using a dedicated kneeling foam pad (also some constructor/hunting kneepad braces tried), a tall sturdy hiking stick or the observing chair with tall back rail to ease standing up/lowering down when tired, and mastering the Telrad Pattern Matching method (TPM) making pointing nearly instant "set and forget..." Mmm... "Set and jump back to the EP?". With all of that you would LOVE kneeling at the Dob especially with a Bortle 3-0 view behind Telrad. It's even refreshing. No need to bend your neck much. I'm oten raising my hand with the star chart to apply TPM side by side with no need remembering the pattern on the chart first. Just match the two pushing the OTA, and go up to the EP. I recall folks arguing that the OTA will hide half of the sky. But the typical outer eye peripheral vision at the dob is still around 30 deg from the pointing direction. Folks on the ladder should be doing that all the time standing).

Other convenience options for a small Dob.
1. Minimal zoom RACI optical finder + peep sight on top of it.
2. Telrad riser installed on the star side from your longest eyepiece setup far away, enough to avoid interfering with your head when looking into Zenith. In theory, if your eye is comfortable at the EP, you should be able to just turn your head towards the sky, catch the collimated reticle and move it to the target keeping your head position relative to the OTA. The Quinsight device I have mentioned earlier have a decent "integrated riser", by the way. I've been playing with it a lot a few years back.
3. Plan your targets so you don't have to kneel before each. A bit of star hopping around can be done in 1 deg FOV EP sitting in the chair even without a dedicated star hopping app.
4. Master the TPM (again). As it helps to reduce your sore neck crooked pointing time to only a few seconds.

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[Mark Wagner]

Alex, I was hoping the image was you shooting a bazooka! TACo David Kingsley had a Zukascope the first time we met! Shoulder mounted! https://share.google/OXsZOOmnsYyYAV5qB

[Alex]

The best possible choice for any beginner, Dave! I'd recommend using the "sky sync" feature of some apps for handhelds. I.e. you can hold the screen side by side with the stars you are identifying in real constellations and learn lines and relations without confusion by scaling the chart to match stars nearly perfectly (assuming good eyes). In my youth, I had all constellations hand copied from an obscure "observers handbook" analog book with constellation lines, designations, and RA/DEC clues onto the tracing paper scraps and glued pieces into the smartphone-sized spiral binder top flip notebook... I still remember the effort, the yellow(ish) copy paper, and the violet ink! Such memory "anchors" help to remember stuff for ages according to modern schooling science. :) I can look at the sky and no matter how obscure the FOV ID the stars I see between obstacles. The "Western tradition" rooting in naval navigation is learning the sky from bright stars relations towards the figures they are forming BETWEEN constellations. Apps supporting both approaches. I'd look for apps supporting the global gnomonic projection mode (preserving directional lines) for the latter.

For the "maps" I would personally recommend skipping the "paper charts" stage in favor of a handheld app. At least for the sake of learning efficiency and the field practicality. Don't confuse them with good "observer's handbooks" with charts though. They are a special treat.

[Alex]

Hey Mark, It was all behind the "iron curtain" for me back then, no photos! :(

[Jay Freeman]

With PiFinder, you never have to sight along the OTA (unless your telescope doesn't have a finder). Here is how it works:

Set up your equipment and turn on PiFinder. Once it is on, it looks at the sky, recognizes the stars it can see, and figures out where it is pointing with an accuracy on the order of one arc minute.

While it is thinking, make sure your own finder is lined up, then use it to locate a bright star in the sky and center it in the eyepiece of your telescope. (If you do not have a finder, this is where you might have to sight along the tube -- you do need a bright star centered in the eyepiece to align PiFinder in the first place.)

Tell PiFinder you are ready to do an alignment, and it will draw a mini constellation map for you, on its graphical screen, of the stars it sees, with lines drawn in like on star charts, so you can easily recognize which constellation is which. The graphics screen has a movable cursor, like a computer. Use the arrow keys on PiFinder's keyboard to move the cursor to the star you have in your eyepiece -- the cursor jumps from star to star as you press the keys, you don't have to work to make it go to the exact spot you want. Make sure your star is still centered in the eyepiece, press the button to tell PiFinder all is set up, and in a second or so PiFinder will report "Alignment complete".

Now you are done. You don't have to look at the sky again at all.

Suppose you want to view NGC 6118 (a highly obscured galaxy in Serpens, one of the most difficult objects in the Herschel-400 list). Use the various keys to go to PiFinder's "Objects" menu, select "NGC", then "6118", then the screen will display broad arrows telling in what direction you must turn your telescope, together with numbers showing how many degrees to slew. PiFinder updates these numbers as you slew, though with occasional lag as the plate-solving algorithm catches up. Get the degrees-to-go numbers small enough, then look in the eyepiece, and there is NGC 6118.

Is the distance you have to slew through too big for lots of cranking of manual slew knobs, or for waiting for electric slew to get there? No problem, release the clutches and swing the OTA by hand -- PiFinder will catch up by the time you have the OTA pointing in the general area.

Can't see NGC 6118 from this side of your van? Tough if you have a big heavy mount, but if you are using a grab-and-go telescope, just pick up the whole tripod, walk around to the other side of the car, and set it down. PiFinder doesn't care about the orientation of the mount, it looks at the sky and it knows from alignment how it points relative to your OTA, so it is just fine.

The classic problem with early go-to mounts is that if you kick the tripod, or move it to the other side of the car, you have to do the whole alignment all over again. Not so with PiFinder.

I like to check out small telescopes by going through the Messier catalog, and with PiFinder I can go from one object to the next in 15 to 30 seconds, even if the next object is half way across the sky. Persons not familiar with it won't believe how fast you can find things with PiFinder.

There are a few catches. (1) PiFinder works best with an altazimuth mount. I have not tried mine with an equatorial, for all I know it might not work at all. (2) It also gets confused by bright planets: I was trying to align on stars in or near Gemini during the recent conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, and PiFinder got completely fuddled. I had to align with the telescope pointed to a different part of the sky.

-- Jay Reynolds Freeman

---------------------
Jay_Reynol...@mac.com
http://JayReynoldsFreeman.com (personal web site)

[Mark]

Yeah, Alex.  I can appreciate that.  I had a camera knocked out of my hands behind the Iron Curtain.

[Joel Lee]

Hey Alex, 

I was going to use whatever is available at the time. That could be anything haha. 

Thanks for the tips, I’ll give the blogs a read through. I agree with the ability to use in line view is superior but it’s just rather inconvenient hence why I was asking about the angled finders. 

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[Rod Brown]

PiFinder works fine on an equatorial mount. You can switch between modes in the settings. I use mine on both types of mounts. 

I also have a Hopper. I am almost certain it works on both, but have not tried it in equatorial mode yet. 

Both devices are great. If you are using SkySafari with them, the trade off is less weight (Hopper) vs. degree display (PiFinder). If you want to use one standalone, then PiFinder is the only option. 

But I know this has drifted away from the original question. 

Rod

[Alex]

I recall asking on their channel, it's not working with the Portaball.

Can you estimate the average pointing time with the Pifinder / Hopper app from selecting an NGC object in the chart app and seeing it in the main EP, Rod? Jay? Just roughly to understand what you can achieve with experience using one for comparison?

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[Steven R.]

PiFinder folks are about to release (if not already released) a new version that works with equatorial mounts and, I think portaball as well. Hopper's been good with these all along :-)

I haven't stopwatched it, but centering an object in the eyepiece takes easily under a minute from selection (for Hopper, and I see no reason PiFinder would be different as both run the same star detection and plate-solving code under their very different UIs). It's the same speed as what you'd have for DSC, except the end result is more accurate with Hopper/PiFinder.

-Steven

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[Jay Freeman]

> PiFinder works fine on an equatorial mount. You can switch between modes in the settings. I use mine on both types of mounts.

THANK YOU FOR THAT! 😸 😸 😸 This is a big deal for the way I observe. I suspect it is a recent upgrade -- I have the latest software (easy download and write to a memory card), but had not known to look for it.

I will try it out soon, and report how it goes with my particular equipment.

-- Jay Reynolds Freeman, Deep-Sky Weasel

[Jay Freeman]

I often use my PiFinder with a Celestron-6 on a Sky-Watcher AZ5 altazimuth mount. (This is the most aperture that I can get for what is -- for my size and physical strength -- a grab-and-go telescope. It also fits in my subcompact Chevrolet Bolt with lots and lots of room to spare.) The AZ5 has excellent worm-gear hand-turned drives on both axes, and manual clutches that are easy to access and quick to engage and release.

Thus configured, the elapsed time between the time where I have typed in the NGC number and pushed the button to see the pointing arrows and degrees-to-go numbers, and the time when the object is well within the field of a 100x eyepiece (60 degree apparent field of view), is typically fifteen to twenty seconds, and for very nearby objects sometimes as little as ten seconds. The 15- to 20-second time is the same whether the new object is near where the telescope is already pointing, or whether it is all the way across the sky -- in the latter case I simply release the clutches and slew the telescope by hand, as fast as it will go.

If I have to move the telescope to the other side of the car (e.g.), it takes another minute or so so pick it up, carry it around, and put it back down.

Let's compare PiFinder with a C-14 on an old, non-goto-equipped Losmandy G11, pointed using charts, finders and star-hopping, used by an experienced observer: If the next object is nearby -- a few degrees away -- in an area with plenty of stars, the time-to-find is typically a minute or two. If the next object is farther away, or in a star-poor area. it might take 5 minutes, perhaps more. Thus the PiFinder is perhaps roughly an order of magnitude faster than the old-school way. I should mention that "plenty of stars", et cetera, is in the context of the 11th magnitude chart limit of the old _Millennium_Star_Atlas_.

HOWEVER, there is something more: What counts most in a long observing session involving many targets, is that it is vastly easier to watch the PiFinder's small computer screen while you twist knobs, than it is to work any kind of controls while you are craning your neck to look through finders or telescope eyepieces at awkward angles. That last gets me tired real fast, so I take longer breaks or terminate the session sooner.

I might also remark that I never use red-dot finders: I am nearsighted with no astigmatism, so I observe with my glasses off (to minimize eye-relief problems), and it is a real pain to keep putting them on and taking them back off to use a red-dot -- they fog up, get lost, or get sat on or stepped on.

-- Jay Reynolds Freeman, Deep-Sky Weasel

---------------------
Jay_Reynol...@mac.com
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[Jay Freeman]

By the way and a bit off topic, but cute: "AZ-5" was the label on the emegency shutdown button that didn't work properly when the Soviet Chernobyl nuclear power reactor blew up in 1986. But I don't think the Sky-Watcher mount glows in the dark -- if it did, we would of course need red filters to use it.

-- Jay Reynolds Freeman, Deep-Sky Weasel
---------------------
Jay_Reynol...@mac.com
http://JayReynoldsFreeman.com (personal web site)

[Frank Graham]

Oh boy. How many times have sat on my glasses “just putting them down for a moment as I switch from red dot finder to eyepiece”. I recently got in my way back machine and found a pair of Croakies from the 1980s (neoprene sunglasses straps), that work great on keeping my glasses on my chest while I look through an eyepiece. As I’m still pretty much a newbie, I use Hopper to find an object in my eyepiece and then in an attempt to gain context, I put on my glasses and look through my red dot finder to see where the object is up in a constellation.

Frank

> On Jun 18, 2026, at 21:02, 'Jay Freeman' via The Astronomy Connection (TAC) <sf-ba...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>

> I often use my PiFinder with a Celestron-6 on a Sky-Watcher AZ5 altazimuth mount. (This is the most aperture that I can get for what is -- for my size and physical strength -- a grab-and-go telescope. It also fits in my subcompact Chevrolet Bolt with lots and lots of room to spare.) The AZ5 has excellent worm-gear hand-turned drives on both axes, and manual clutches that are easy to access and quick to engage and release.

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[Rod Brown]

My experience with both devices is like Steven said. Both update in a fraction of a second, with the Hopper possibly being a little bit faster, but both doing well.

Since I bought a Hopper from him at the Spring Fling, it has become my default for my Dob. I find that I don’t miss the numerical display on the PiFinder. I push my Dob to the vicinity of the sky of what I want to look at, then use the SkySafari display to position the scope on the object. I’m very comfortable with all the controls in SkySafari to select an object, center if, switch to locking on the scope view, changing field of view, etc. I have all my equipment set up in the app so I can quickly make the display match the eyepiece view, which is great when searching for faint objects.

I’m a little slower on the eq mount. I’ve had my refractor and eq mount for much less time than my Dob, and I am still training my brain to think equatorially. The PiFinder numerical display is helpful in this case. Setting SkySafari to show the equatorial grid is also helpful. But the process is still pretty fast.

I am very nearsighted and I observe without my glasses (they hang on a strap around my neck). After moving to the rough area of the sky I am interested in, I can do everything above without my glasses.

To maintain my dark adaptation, my iPad has a sheet of rubylith over it, which makes the background nearly black, and I set the screen brightness very low. Red flashlights, headlamps, computer screens, and whatnot around me are more bothersome than the iPad display (but we’ve gone through that on this list many times so no need to rehash it). (I use an observing hood when necessary.)

I’ll have both at GSSP if anyone wants to have a look. Richard (of PiFinder) was there last year, too. Hopefully he will chime in here if he will be back this year, and Steven, too.

Rod

On Jun 19, 2026, at 10:16 AM, Frank Graham <frankg...@gmail.com> wrote:

Oh boy. How many times have sat on my glasses “just putting them down for a moment as I switch from red dot finder to eyepiece”. I recently got in my way back machine and found a pair of Croakies from the 1980s (neoprene sunglasses straps), that work great on keeping my glasses on my chest while I look through an eyepiece. As I’m still pretty much a newbie, I use Hopper to find an object in my eyepiece and then in an attempt to gain context, I put on my glasses and look through my red dot finder to see where the object is up in a constellation.

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[Muriel Dulieu Holzer]

Oh wow, 44 answers! Thank you all for the great advice!

John, thanks! I downloaded the extra stars. I did not know you can turn on the Telrad circles on SkySafari Pro either! That is useful!
Once, I had forgotten my PiFinder and only had my Telrad with me. I asked Claude (AI) to give me Telrad instructions to find the easiest targets on my list. I was quite impressed with the result. It gave me the steps to starhop using the Telrad circles by telling me to put different stars on the circles.

Christopher, thank you! I have tried an 80mm Stellarvue optical finderscope and it was fantastic. But I see that you are using a 50mm. Is that better? What are the good brands of finderscopes? Do you recommend Uranometria 2000.0?

Alex, I am not following very well what you are saying. Are you going to GSSP so I can check your setup in person?

Dave, In my experience, it is more fun to learn the constellations while observing. When I look for an object, I first identify which constellation it is in on SkySafari Pro, then I find the constellation in the sky, then I look for the location of the object in the constellation... and then I use the PiFinder. I could use the PiFinder directly, but this way I get oriented. If the object is not in the field of view given by the PiFinder and/or is very faint, I take a picture of it with the SeeStar to see what it looks like and identify the pattern of stars around it.

-Muriel

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[Dave Bullock]

Oh I love this idea, thanks! 

On Jun 19, 2026, at 2:11 PM, Muriel Dulieu Holzer <mdu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dave, In my experience, it is more fun to learn the constellations
while observing. When I look for an object, I first identify which
constellation it is in on SkySafari Pro, then I find the constellation
in the sky, then I look for the location of the object in the
constellation... and then I use the PiFinder. I could use the PiFinder
directly, but this way I get oriented. If the object is not in the
field of view given by the PiFinder and/or is very faint, I take a

picture of it with the Seestar to see what it looks like and identify

[Christopher Kelly]

Hi Muriel.   I use red dot (Televue Starbeam) and optical finders. 

 For optical finders I use 50mm, I have a straight through and a RACI cuz my C14 pier is set up for me to sit comfortably and view at the zenith.   I don’t think it matters what brand you get - mine are both Celestron.  I am sure Stellarvue and AP have top notch finders too …. but I prefer to spend my $$ on the main scope views.  And you guessed it I pair it with the Uranometria 2000 with a limiting mag of 9.5 to 9.75.   This matches the limiting mag under meh conditions for the 50mm.    I think it’s important to match the magnitude of the stars on your reference (SkySafari or other) to what you are seeing to be most effective.   It’s dynamic (ie a pain) on SkySafari but doable.  

Clears

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[Jay Freeman]

I said ...

> I might also remark that I never use red-dot finders: [...]


I forgot to mention in my earlier, long post, that staring at the illuminated red dot in a red dot finder sometimes causes me noticeable loss of dark adaptation. I am serious, with the red light bright enough to see clearly, it's too much, and if I dim it to the point where I need averted vision to see it, then it is hard to use it to line up the telescope.

These problems were most noticeable at uncommonly dark sites like Bumpas Hell at Lassen, Coe or Fremont Peak in the old days and with thick marine-layer fog turning off lights in the coastal plain and valleys below, or at the Summit Observatories Visitor Center on Mauna Kea.

With a conventional finder at such times, I of course do not illuminate the crosshairs; rather, I center the finder on stars by moving the telescope around and noting when a star disappears because one or both of the invisible crosshairs blocks its light.

-- Jay Reynolds Freeman, Deep-sky Weasel

[Alex]

As Jay has noted, the RDF is very hard to make working well with deeply dark adapted eyes, even after adding more light filtering (or its LED current modulation) for dimming because its "dot" pattern is immediately bleaching the center area of the macula just from the neurophysiology of the visual perception. While Telrad has a much larger surface reticle, also without the "evil" central dot in the view. It's much easier to pick up and follow at extremely low brightness levels over the darker sky. Leaving enough rods unbleached near and around the center of the macula. In addition, the Telrad circuit can be easily modified with the well known "blinker mod". Which is reducing the eye exposure while improving the pattern detection/visibility further at even lower LED brightness possible efficiently and controllably as your darkness adaptation improves through the night. Also, the simple wiggling of the FOV can be helpful for the detection similar to the blinking, as it will introduce the brain is naturally more sensitive to moving views.

By the way, I think the easiest (overall) to implement Telrad blinker mod would use a low power microcontroller with BLE, so you can avoid gutting your Telrad too much with physical blinker control handles (ideally, you need to cut-in 2 additional pots), using a versatile wireless blinking control app on your smartphone. See my implementation notes (for Quinsight but it's device-agnostic) here: https://www.dobmod.com/2020/06/internet-of-things-for-amateur-astronomy.html 

Even with cheap optical finderes (no lit reticle feature), the black reticle visibility is rarely a problem when you are well dark adapted (unless your finder is significantly longer than 1:5) due to the natural sky glow even in B0. If not well adapted yet you can improve it by defocusing stars slightly, making them appear as small disks clearly covered by reticle lines (vs stars disappearing behind themas Jay has suggested). Also, you can temporarily add a small piece of light colored material in front of the aperture (even if just the tip of your finger) facing upwards. With even slightly dark adapted eye it's enough stray light in the sky and around you to be reflected from that defocused object to make the background in the finder view a bit lighter, making the black reticle prominent enough against it (you can also use a dim flashlight to increase it if not adapted at all).

Regarding Skysafari (and many other digital charts) automatic magnitude limits confusion, I'd urge everybody using that app to start spamming the app support email about implementing a trivial finger control for that mag limit in the app overriding the automatic presets table/formula they have implemented for that. It escapes me why they don't understand the practical issue with their crude implementation of the "screen crowding problem" ruining the celestial navigation, which can be fixed with just a few lines of code?
On a side note, there is also the "magnitude gradient representation" problem, which is about the differentiation of stars magnitude by their image disk size drawing/rendering on the chart. That would need 2 more control sliders added working together with the magnitude limiting control slider. Having all 3 at hand you can adapt any digital chart you work with on the screen at the moment to your individual visual perception of the star field brightness as visible in every individual instrument you have and match your individual brain mapping habits or/and the observing task as needed on the fly. But that appears to be too hard to grasp for an average star chart app developer with no understanding of visual perception science, thus better begin asking for the "manual mag limiter" feature only first as the most frustrating :)

Just in case, I don't use Skysafari, as when I was checking last time (a few years back) it was too bad for the darkness adaptation preservation and lacking too many important features for a minimally serious visual observer. Still light years more practical with modern AMOLED screens than any white paper charts no doubt, as white paper charts will bleach your entire eye when using a typical red flashlight (flood light), or the entire macula if you have even a 1/2" spotlight flashlight. Black paper charts are better, but they need much more light intensity to see low contrast light designations on the dark paper clearly. Thus, I think the only option with paper charts is the eyepatch on the observing eye + very quick chart glancing + readaptation as left/right eye adaptation is cross-dependent with the "onset  delay".

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[Mark Wagner]

I keep my Telrad set to "Where the ****** are the circles?" brightness.  If I could develop a usable Braille star chart I'd like it.

[Alex]

Mark, I have witnessed that the most typical Telrad (and RDF) user error is treating it as a "gun sight", which means using it from afar for pointing to mitigate the parallax. While in fact this collimation optics is (theoretically) parallax free by design, thus it can (and should) be used as a typical straight through finder, with the eye placed as close to the optical window (eyepiece) as possible to get an ultra-wide field of view with circles/dot immediately visible within guaranteed. There are multiple problems with that, forcing users to hunt for the dot/circles within the small (as seen in the sky from a distance) mirror frame.

The first one surely being the "convenient" finder location on the OTA. It might be too convenient for just a "gun sight" style pointing, or being chosen to simply avoid bumping into it. But if the eye is more than an inch or two from it, you will have to hunt for the reticle reflection axis all the time, moving the head widely around trying to catch the blink of a 2 degrees reticle in a 5 degrees keyhole window. On the lowest Telrad brightness settings even the hint of reflection of the sky glow in the not coated collimator lens top surface could be too much to see the rings pattern already. BTW, the dew hat on Telrad is not just an optional dew remedy only after the good darkness adaptation onset. Also, BTW, the QuInsight device is using a well coated duplet collimator properly fixing that issue (surely for an added expense, though not as much as the insane $450 TV RDF nonsense).

The second problem is the low quality/defective $5 RDF sights all over the market, including on branded telescopes, which also lack any user accessible collimation options. They often still show significant general or off-axis parallax unless you are looking from a good distance, effectively turning the collimation pointer into the gun sight again (the dot needs to be centered in the small RDF mirror frame ring first to be reliably accurate on the star).

Then another user error. Despite the Telrad (and Orion) having the accessible collimation mechanism (three handles under the window), it's not a dedicated one as it coincides with the reticle alignment mechanism. Many users have a vague idea about the collimator optics principle and use these for the alignment of the reticle center with the main EP FOV center only. As Telrad mount is considered forgiving installation misalignments, users rarely care about the very rigid and/or very aligned mounting of it (e.g. I saw Telrads mounted on the counterweight) as they used to realign the reticle every time, no problem. But very often the repeated realignment causes the internal mirror gradual hike in or out of the perfectly collimated light path distance (collimator lens focal range) position, which will eventually reproduce the low quality RDF problem described above (parallax). Which is intuitively mitigated by moving the eye farther from the device reproducing the gun sight pointing style again.

Also, I knew users complaining about the Telrad reticle being out of focus and proudly explaining how to get it into the perfect focus using alignment screws. But in fact the problem is often with the user's far/nearsighted eye or "lazy eye" conditions (inability to focus on infinity automatically). Doing that deliberately resembles the prior problem, leading to the first one again. The solution is to make sure that you can see stars and reticle in focus simultaneously first, and only then adjust for the main EP FOV center alignment error reducing the (unavoidable due to inaccurate initial mounting) afocal reticle shift as much as possible. Not 20-20 eyesight? Glasses are mandatory for the collimator principle to actually work as designed. On a side note, Quinsight have addressed that problem with the collimator focusing always perfect (factory set), and the independent FOV alignment mechanism.

By the way, my "bazuka style" of pointing, is promoting the close eye position. You never need to hunt for the reticle, as you know for sure it's immediately within the view, just relax and look along the side of the OTA first then for about a palm width from the UTA rim (that's why I never bothered adding the blinker mod to my Telrad, but it was needed for Quinsight with its rimless FOV and the elevated top location removing additional references but promoting a much wider open FOV).