update: this telescope was stolen from my garage sometime from Mid-2004 onwards. I would be interested if anyone around Perth spots it in their travels. It's not worth much but I would like to find out what happened to it...

My Starfinder is my first telescope which I purchased in 1995 for just under $1000. It can with a standard 25mm eyepiece. As an extra purchase I got an 8x50 finder and a 1.25" barlow lens.

Some modifications I have made are:

• The focuser is fairly nasty and I had to put some black tape above it to block a hole letting some stray light through.
• A velcro strip near the base of the tube for affixing counter-weights. Only really needed when using a camera.
• The sides of the box come loose over time so I put an extra four screws in each side to get it sturdy.
• I bought a Meade Magellan unit to play around with, you can see the azimuth mounting in the last picture.