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This little compass is easy to use, fits in your pocket, and has a nice price. I previously bought an expensive folding compass that was attractive, sturdy and well-made. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to use it.
It served him just fine, and has proved durable. I gave one of these as a gift to a friend who them took it along on a Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness trip. It is a little more compact, so it fits better in my waist pack, or in my cargo pants side pocket. It's a basic compass that has everything that's needed for basic/casual orienteering. It's easy to read, and the rounded base makes it easier to hold in-hand for those quick bearing checks.
I can put the edge of it to the edge of the telescope and get a true north reading. I'm using this compass to align my telescope. The compass works great and is easy to use.
I bought this compass to use with my telescope and it is large enough to use and see with a red light at night.
In this case, the needle is not boxed inside the doghouse, and I find it can lead to errors, especially when you are tired and not thinking clearly after a long hike. On the Nexus Star, however, you can't do this. The biggest disadvantage, in my opinion, is that it doesn't have a true declination adjustment; it is advertised as having a "declination scale" which is not the same. If you always navigate using magnetic bearings rather than true bearings, this isn't a problem.I can recommend this compass for use with a GPS receiver that is set to read magnetic bearings, and it is suitable as a back-up compass. Compasses with true declination adjustment allow you to rotate this "Doghouse" to align it with the desired declination. The Brunton Nexus Star is a low-cost, fairly rugged, basic compass.
On the minus side, the baseplate is very short, so it is harder to use with a map and a little less accurate when reading a bearing. Instead, you have to remember to line up the compass needle with the point on the scale that corresponds to the local declination. Like any low-cost compass, if you know how to use it you can get where you want to go, but it lacks features you may later wish you had. That way you always read a bearing by aligning the needle inside the Doghouse. I also regularly use it as an inexpensive tool to teach students in my GPS classes how to use a compass, but I wouldn't recommend it for serious work. On the plus side, it is lightweight, inexpensive, and fairly thin, so it doesn't take up a lot of room in your pocket.
On a baseplate compass, you take a bearing by lining up the compass needle inside the North Reference Indicator (sometimes called the "Doghouse") etched on the bottom of the vial.
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