Paul Hashfield Reviews

I recently acquired a Meade 8 LX 200R and sometime found great difficulty finding alignment stars with the Meade finder. This was particularly true when the selected stars were near the zenith as the straight through finder not only has a relatively narrow field of view but also required me to bend very low to get a view through it. I had previously owned a Televue TV 101 which included a Starbeam finder so I was familiar with using that finder. Mounting the Starbeam on my LX 200 solved all my problems and I now use it much more often than the Meade finder both for initial alignment and for quick pointing to observation targets. The flip mirrow is particularly useful for targets near zenith. A nice feature of the Starbeam, which I hadnt anticipated is its use for sidewalk star parties, It allows novice viewers to quickly look through the unit finder and get a visual indication of the location in the sky of the object viewed in the telescope eyepiece. Installation and allignment were very easy. Quality is superb. I have absolutely no negative comments.