Finders Keepers

10/7/2026. I spent some time down in the shop cobbling bracketry to put a finder-scope beside the 400mm lens. Ideally, the Wave mount should do the finding for me, but it ain't modern times in Sicily. I still need to flash the firmware in the handset and adopt a practical polar-alignment routine. In the meantime, the finder works. Mostly. With some luck and careful practice, the finder will also work as a polar alignment 'scope when the mount is sent to its home position. I haven't been rigorous with that yet, but a casual try was encouraging. Here's M13 about to disappear behind treetops. A slew by name put it somewhere in the finder's field after using the finder to refine an iPhone alignment. M13 was not centered, but it was there, and the error is likely down to still-poor polar alignment.

M13 with treetops. 23x5s, 400mm F2.8, ISO 6400

I am not convinced that the alignment of the finder with the 400mm lens is robust enough to survive across multiple nights. We'll see. I'll do a show and tell here when I'm sure it works. For now, it's not hard to reset the alignment with any bright star and then repeat polar alignment. Clouds will force a pause to these experiments for at least a few nights.

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