NCSTAR RED/GREEN DOT FINDER Last updated: 21 February 2009

Sent:	Saturday, February 21, 2009 10:43:54
From:	Jan M. Hollis (jan.mike.hollis@verizon.net)
For less than $20 on Amazon, I bought an NCStar Red/Green Dot gun sight,
designed for the paintball crowd, to use on my ETX-125EC.   The sight is
very rugged, made from aluminum, has a clear 25 mm diameter objective,
weighs 132 grams, is 104 mm in length, has two different size dovetail
settings, and comes in either black or silver.  The resulting dot size
is a nicely resolved disk approximately 5 arcminutes in diameter.  The
paintballers complained that the unit is often too dim for daytime use,
so I took the chance that it might be fine for astronomy.  The battery
that comes with it is a 3Volt CR2032.  When I got the sight I had to
take the battery out and the electronics disk that it sits on to access
4 small screws to loosen the rheostat so that the unit more easily turns
on/off and changes between red and green dot brightness settings.  At 3
volts the dot is bright enough for daytime use, but I found if you leave
the unit on for a day or so, the voltage drops to about 2.8 volts and
then it is almost impossible to see the dot in daytime but is just
perfect for nighttime use.  Subsequently, on the web I found that the
discharge curve for CR2032 batteries quickly drops to ~2.8 volts but
stays there for hundreds of hours -- no wonder the paintballers are
complaining!  In any case, I think this particular gun sight makes a
very good telescope finder, and pass along these comments for what
they're worth.

Cheers,
Jan M. Hollis

And:

I used 3M VHB double-stick tape (Ace Hardware) with the sight mounting
brackets set for the 3/8" dovetail.  This tape is clear and very, very
tenacious.  Attached are two photos of the unit.  Also shown in the
pictures is a yellow line level for finding Home position....

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