Telrad vs. Rigel QuikFinder: Which Should You Buy?

The first time I put a Telrad on my 10-inch, the whole hobby got easier. Both eyes open, three glowing rings floating on the real sky, and a galaxy that had taken ten minutes of hunting was in the eyepiece in thirty seconds. Ask a room of experienced observers what to bolt on first and most of them say Telrad. The rest say Rigel QuikFinder, and they are both right. The two do the same job at about the same price. The decision is almost entirely about the telescope you are putting it on.

The short version: the Telrad is the one I’d hand most Dobsonian owners. Three rings instead of two, the 4° outer circle that matches the circles printed on star charts, and a body big enough to find in the dark. The QuikFinder is the one for small scopes, refractors and anything you carry: Rigel’s own line is that it is a tenth the size and weight of the competition’s reflex sight, and on a 4-inch tube that is the difference between a finder and a hood ornament.

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Short answer: pick by the size of your telescope

• Buy the Telrad (~$50) if your scope is a 6-inch or larger Dobsonian or Newtonian, you star-hop from printed or app charts, and you want the three-ring reticle that nearly every observing guide was written around.
• Buy the Rigel QuikFinder (~$54–59) if your scope is a refractor, a Schmidt-Cassegrain, a tabletop Dobsonian or anything under about 6 inches, you travel with it, or the Telrad’s bulk would unbalance the tube. The pulsing reticle is a real advantage on faint targets too.

What they share: a 1× view with rings on it

Both are reflex sights. Neither magnifies. You look through a tilted window at the actual sky with both eyes open, and a red reticle appears to float on it. Put the rings where the target should be and it is in the eyepiece. That is why experienced observers prefer them to a magnifying finderscope for getting close: the view matches what your eyes and your chart already show, with no flipping and no squinting. Both are made in the United States, both run on batteries you can buy anywhere, both mount with a base you stick or screw to the tube and then clip the sight onto, so one finder can move between scopes if you buy a second base.

Where they differ

Why you’d buy the Telrad: the reticle everyone writes for

The Telrad’s three concentric rings are 0.5°, 2° and 4° across, and that outer 4° ring is the reason it became the default. Printed star atlases and observing books have shipped with “Telrad circles” overlays for decades, and most planetarium apps can draw them on screen. You hold the chart up, match the ring pattern to the stars you can see, and the hop is done. Nothing about it is clever; it is just big, bright and consistent, and after a few nights you stop thinking about it. The size that makes it unwieldy on a small scope is a feature on a big Dobsonian, where you can find it by feel in the dark and the tube barely notices the weight.

Telrad — Check price ▸

Why you’d buy the QuikFinder: the same idea in a fraction of the footprint

Rigel’s QuikFinder stands 4.5 inches tall on a body 1.4 inches square and projects two rings, 0.5° and 2°. You lose the 4° outer ring, which matters less than it sounds: most hops end inside the 2° circle anyway, and the 0.5° ring puts a target in a low-power eyepiece on its own. What you gain is a finder that fits on an 80 mm refractor without tipping it, rides in a travel case, and comes with two bases in the box so it moves between scopes. The pulse mode is the underrated part: set the reticle to blink and a faint galaxy stops hiding behind the glow of the rings. Rigel’s page says the lithium coin cell is included; High Point’s listing says it is sold separately, so read the listing you land on and keep a CR2032 in the eyepiece case either way.

Rigel is a small US company, and the story of how its finders came to be is worth five minutes: the Rigel Systems story.

Rigel QuikFinder — Check price ▸

Dew, the problem both of them have

A reflex sight’s window faces the sky, so it fogs on humid nights before anything else on the telescope does. The Telrad has a long-standing fix: a slip-on dew shield, sold as an accessory, and a heater strip if you observe in the wet. High Point lists the QuikFinder with a dew cap included. If you observe somewhere damp, budget for the Telrad’s shield from the start, and either way keep a hand warmer in the pocket for the window.

Or both, which is what a lot of us end up with

For a deep-sky observer the answer is a reflex sight to get close and a magnifying finder to zero in, and plenty of big-Dob owners run a Telrad beside a 9×50. If you own two telescopes, the pairing that makes sense is a Telrad on the Dobsonian and a QuikFinder on the small scope, and because the QuikFinder ships with a spare base, it can swap between them. The full field, including the optical finders and the stock red-dot upgrades, is in our finders guide.

Where to buy

• Telrad (~$50) — Check price ▸
• Rigel QuikFinder (~$54–59) — Check price ▸

Once the finder is on and aligned, the first target is easy: Saturn, which needs no star-hopping at all, then a real hop to something faint with tonight’s sky as the chart.