Quote:
Originally Posted by N1
G'day John, sorry for the diversion but I'm quite interested in your observations with the binoviewers vs monocular vision. I've been thinking about binoviewers myself but never did go down that path but still kept wondering. Are you able to say what the main reason might have been, for you not liking them over single EP viewing? From your comments I'm assuming it wasn't to do with the usual focusing/weight/cost issues but the actual viewing? Cheers
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Hi Mirko,
The problems were all to do with the viewing experience. Cost wasn't an issue, at the time; and weight wasn't a concern either. All my scopes were medium to larger scopes (10" to 18") and were all fitted with Feathertouch Focusers and Servocat tracking. At the time I had Scott's bino's Saturn was very well placed (at Zenith just before midnight) so I spent a lot of time on it and I also spent a lot of time on the moon, when it was around.
Don has pretty much hit the nail on the head.
With some of the wider eyepieces I kept losing the exit pupil trying to take in the full field of view. This was further compounded by the fact that I wear high quality multifocals when I observe and I often found I was looking outside the fully corrected area of my glasses trying to take in more of the FOV. I had observing with multifocals down pat with single eyepieces in learning exactly how to observe with them and not suffer any loss of image quality. The funny thing is I have no problem using binoculars with long eye relief combined with my multifocals, but both of my binoculars have a fairly narrow FOV for their size and aperture.
The other thing I really didn't like was the drop in image brightness on Saturn. Having observed with large aperture scopes for a long time I guess my brain was just accustomed to expecting Saturn to be at a certain brightness level. It was a bit the same on the moon. I observe the moon unfiltered in all my scopes including the 18", as I get more detail unfiltered. Again I guess I am accustomed to perceiving it should be brighter than what I was seeing. The moon in binoviewers would work for a lot of people because they can't cope with a really bright image and dimming it without the use of a filter would help them, but it wasn't for me.
The other thing was that I had spent quite a bit of time using a 12" binocular telescope and it just wasn't remotely close to the same experience in regard to the 3D effect on DSO targets like Eta Carina, 47 Tuc and the like. Maybe I had been spoilt somewhat in this regard and my expectations on DSO's were too high. I still have ready access to the 12" binocular telescope, so not much point in me buying a binoviewer.
Cheers,
John B