| This blue 12 x 80mm right-angle multicoated achromatic doublet finder is an excellent larger aperture/more convenient replacement for the smaller straight-through finders as standard equipment with many Meade catadioptric telescopes, such as all past and present LX200 models. It also is available as an upgrade for the 6 x 30mm finder supplied with many other Meade catadioptric telescopes, such as the LX10, an older 2080, etc. It allows you to comfortably use the finderscope without having to turn your head upside down to view near the zenith, as you do with a standard straight-through finder. The right-angle first-surface mirror diagonal gives images that are upright, but mirror-image reversed, just as they are in the eyepiece of a catadioptric telescope. This makes the finder particularly useful with Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain scopes, as the finder’s image orientation matches the upright mirror-image orientation you see in the scope’s eyepiece. Its large 80mm aperture has a limiting magnitude of 12, fainter than the stars on any commercial star chart, making it easy for you to locate faint nebulas and galaxies. The field of view is 4.33 degrees wide and the eye relief is a substantial 15mm. There's a rolldown rubber eyecup for eyeglass use. The finder weighs 44.5 ounces, without optional finder bracket. It will not fit into the 50mm finder dovetail supplied with those Meade scopes that come with a straight-through 8 x 50mm finder as standard equipment. The finder comes without a mounting bracket, but an 11-ounce SCT-type quick release dovetail bracket that fits the finder mounting holes on Meade scopes is available as an option. The 88mm diameter body of the finder is aluminum, painted in Meade blue, and internally baffled for higher contrast. The black anodized aluminum lens cell has an extra long integral shade to retard the formation of dew and shield the objective from ambient light. Anti-reflection grooving on the inside of the lens shade further enhances contrast. The supplied crosshair eyepiece is removable and has a standard 1.25" barrel. It is held in place by a thumbscrew to allow easy orientation of the crosshairs to match the optical axis of the scope. You first rough-focus the finder by loosening the thumbscrew in the diagonal’s eyepiece holder and sliding the eyepiece in and out of the diagonal until it is focused on infinity. The thumbscrew is then tightened to hold that focus. A diopter ring on the eyepiece allows you to fine-tune the focus for individual observers without having to loosen the thumbscrew or move the eyepiece.
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