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The Starbeam seems to project a 10 arc minute ball of red light wherever your telescope is pointing at night, making it easy to quickly center your scope on planets and deep space objects. The Starbeam is normally used as a straight-through finder, similar to the heads-up display in a military aircraft cockpit. However, the Starbeam also has a pivoting light-weight first surface flip mirror that allows the Starbeam to be used as a straight-through finder, a right angle finder for observing at the zenith, and at any angle in between. This standard flip mirror (also available as an inexpensive retrofit for older Starbeams) makes the Starbeam a truly universal finder.

For non-TeleVue scopes of 4” and larger tube diameters, installation requires drilling two holes in your optical tube to match the spacing of the holes in the black metal base channel on the Starbeam and attaching the base channel to your scope using the supplied nuts and bolts. The black and silver metal finder itself then slips onto the base channel and is held in place by one large knurled knob. Azimuth and altitude adjustment knobs allow you to line up the Starbeam with your main scope optics.

An on/off switch and integral rotary brightness control allow you to match the finder brightness to your eye’s dark adaptation. In addition, a rotary control in the side of the illuminator lets you gradually vary the blink rate of the illuminator from constantly on, to a rapid blinking, down to a slow half second on/half second off pulsing rate for more comfortable viewing. Uses a Duracell XL DL 1/3N lithium or equivalent battery (supplied, but not guaranteed by TeleVue to be at full strength).