‘The Nexus eFinder is the wave of the future’: Josh’s first light report

Josh Wright, one of our long-time customers from Pennsylvania, has been kind enough share a first light report on his new Nexus eFinder & Nexus DSC set-up. Read his words below:

So here is the follow up that I promised! I’m gonna go ahead and give the whole backstory, as well as the current review, and my thoughts on the future of this product within the astronomy community.

My experience with a legacy eFinder

The creator of the “original” Legacy eFinder, Keith Venables (aka Astro Keith), pretty much open sourced his eFinder creation so that people could build their own eFinder units. That was clearly not something I was interested in doing on my own. Without knowing how effective the unit would be, the hassle factor did not seem to be worth the effort.

But after our club president brought in Keith to talk about the product at a ChesMont Astronomical Society club meeting and began to encourage club members to get together to do a group build, I saw the mechanism to build one of those systems and give it a try. Steve LaBrenz (a.k.a. Super Steve) really took the helm of that project and deserves a huge thank you for all of the work that he did on my (and others) Legacy eFinders.

The Legacy eFinder had its teething problems

I will admit there was more than one frustrating moment on that journey. Being on the cutting edge of a new system is going to present challenges, and there were plenty of those. One of the items that proved difficult was powering the Legacy eFinder. That took quite a bit to work through, but once I decided to power it independently of my main scope power source, we were off to the races.

Minor problems persisted. Often times it would involve some simple setting that needed to be changed in the Nexus DSC. Other times just downright goofy and unlucky things would happen to derail the progress.

But in the end (with copious amounts of help from Super Steve) I got this product across the finish line. And once I saw the system in operation, I could say it was definitely worth the hassle.

It cut my object search time down to seconds

So let’s take a step back and talk about the ability of my 25″ scope prior to the Legacy eFinder. Routinely my scope would struggle to get an object within the field of view of a 13 Ethos eyepiece. Despite its low power and wide field of view, the object would rarely be in even that eyepiece. However, this never really bothered me much.

Years ago when I bought the “go-to and tracking” system for my scope and installed it, I mainly got it for the tracking.

I am extremely proficient in star hopping, and in years past would joke that my brain was a Nexus and my right arm was a ServoCAT. When I would center an object with star hopping, it would be dead center every time! So, I would simply send the scope to the object and then go in the last degree or two via star hopping. So when the scope go-tos were “soft” it was never a big deal for me.

And this is why, when I originally heard about the Legacy eFinder, I was not that interested. I just didn’t think it would be that much quicker than what I could accomplish with my own abilities.

But that proved to be incorrect. Once all the development hurdles were overcome, I immediately realized how much of an improvement the Legacy eFinder system made.

What used to take me 2 to 6 minutes to accomplish could be accomplished in about 8 seconds.

A go-to system that would in times past routinely struggle to place an object anywhere within the field of a 13 Ethos was consistently putting objects within the field of view of a 3.5 Pentax XW!!!

The improvements from having the Legacy eFinder was not subtle. It simply was a game changer. I liked the system so much, I decided I never wanted to be without it, and had Steve build me a back up unit.

Buying the Nexus eFinder and Nexus DSC Pro combo at NEAF

The first thing I noticed is how much more streamlined this new product is. It eliminates multiple components, multiple wires, and multiple plugs of the original Legacy eFinder system. This makes for a much better user experience.

While I was in the booth at NEAF with Serge, I had him walk-through how to set up the Nexus and the Nexus eFinder. Primarily I was interested in what settings needed to be changed within the Nexus DSC Pro, as Nexus DSC settings proved frustrating with getting the Legacy eFinder unit working.

I videoed his demonstration, so once I had all the new Nexus eFinder components on my scope Saturday night, I simply watched the video and got all my settings situated properly.

Once I had that done, I sent the scope to an object, did the plate solve, and resent the scope. It immediately centered the object. Unfortunately the object began to “drift” almost immediately. But fortunately, I remembered dealing with this issue on the Legacy unit. Turns out Serge had forgotten to include disengaging the Astrolock feature on the Nexus DSC Pro when he went over things Saturday afternoon. But having worked through this problem before, I went ahead and made the fix.

That’s when I resent the scope and did the plate solve, only this time it dropped the object dead center and immediately began to track it.

I was completely blown away that the most difficult and time-consuming part of installing and getting the new Nexus eFinder working was attaching the dovetail holder bracket for the new eFinder/camera unit!

The new Nexus DSC Pro and Nexus eFinder is truly plug and play!

And it didn’t take me long to realize that the improvements did not stop with the reduction of components and the streamlining of the system. It just worked so much quicker and smoother. And I began to realize that it was also a bit more accurate.

Not that the accuracy of the Legacy eFinder unit needed improvement, but this new unit seemed even more precise.

So just for kicks I put the 3.5 Pentax XW in a 2X Televue PowerMate. I sent it to Vega (almost at Zenith), and boom, it was in the eyepiece. Then I sent it all the way down to Antares, and boom, it was in the eyepiece. And then I sent it up and over to Arcturus, and boom, it was in the eyepiece. Then I sent it to M57, and boom, there it was, framed within the fieldstop, and filling up the upper right half of the eyepiece! I then sent it to M3 where the bottom half of the cluster filled the upper half of the eyepiece. Five objects all placed within the field of view of a 3.5 Pentex with a 2X Televue PowerMate in a 25″ f4!!

That’s nuts!!

This item is a true game changer. It moves the needle in a significant direction. And that direction is way more time at the eyepiece and way less time finding the object.

My thoughts on the future of the Nexus eFinder

So I will say, I am not one to run out and embrace “new and improved” unless it is truly new and improved. So many times things come along that appear better in one area, but create more hassles in other areas. The net effect is a lot of time and money spent and new hassles to deal with for very little true improvement. So no, you will never find me camped out in front of a store to get the latest iPhone, TV, computer, or appliance.

This eFinder system however, (both the Legacy unit and now the Nexus eFinder unit) does not follow the typical pattern of “constant new and improved”. This item is a true game changer. It moves the needle in a significant direction. And that direction is way more time at the eyepiece and way less time finding the object.

I didn’t think there was much out there that could ever beat me at finding an object, but this has. No need for me to go down swinging like the legendary John Henry that the “Man in Black” sang about. I know when I’ve been bested.

The eFinder straight up turns your big “sloppy” Dob into a precise tac driver. Period.

It isn’t a new improvement, it is a complete game changer. And in my opinion (especially when it come to Big Dobs)… it is the wave of the future.

First light report written by Josh Wright.

A huge thank you to Josh for sharing this report!