Binoviewer or ED80 for widefield?

[dugnsuz]

Hi All,
I have sold my 12" Dob in preparation for my family's move to Brisbane.
As we'll be moving around in the next few months - don't know final destination/light pollution, I thought I might get an ED80 with a WO binoviewer or a Zenithstar short tube + binoviewer setup as a portable setup for the near future.

As you can see I'd love to observe with 2 eyes open.

Question is...is it worth it???
Do I stick with the cyclops view (Panoptic 22mm - I kept that!!! ((no I didn't!!!)) + ED80)
Or, go with the (pseudo) 3D bino views?

Any observations/experience appreciated
Cheers
Doug:thumbsup:

[Harpspitfire]

i dont use my BV,s much or observe much- i 'waste' time trying photo- LOL, but i compared my celestron BV,s at the same power with a SV80mm nighthawk-close call- but the BV,s had the edge in resolution and hard to describe, but a 'realistic' effect-- my understanding is the stellarvue,celestron, WO, burgess,and other come from the same place- i think the moonfish branded BV,s are something like $129 USD on sale at the moment

[dugnsuz]

Hi Harpspitfire,
how about comfort?
Did you find 2 eyes or 1 the most comfortable to use?
And, do you know if those "generic" BVs come to focus in an ED80?
Cheers
Doug:thumbsup:

[Harpspitfire]

well hard to explain- the eye relief is quite large depending on the EP,s you use- but i notice the merge point is further away from the EP then using a single EP--youll reach focus one or another in the 80mm ED- you might need the 1.5X bino corrector, a 2xbarlow works- depending on your focuse travel you may just need an extension, a 2" diagonal even helps having a longer f/l over a 1.25-- in my SCT i need nothing to help reach focus, im my newt i need a barlow

[Hammerman]

Another option on binoviewers..... I bought a pair of Denkmeier Big Easy binoviewers. These came with a corrector so you can reach focus in just about any telescope. Now personally I can only say that they work great in both my 8" dob, and my 100ED refractor.

Again, I can only speak about these BV's, but the comfort level is much better with 2 eyes. You just seem to relax more with both eyes open. Not only that, you pick up on a lot more detail (Yeah, I did the "open and close one eye" trick while using them for the first time). Even though the only pairs of ep's that I have right now are 10mm & 25mm plossls, I really enjoy using them. I have a single 7mm Nagler ep, but as of now I prefer to use the two 10mm plossls. I'm sure that will change once I get another 7mm Nagler, but I enjoy using 2 eyes that much more than one eye.

You can find a short review of mine here on the Denk BV's
http://home.comcast.net/~astrohammer/opinionspage2.htm (http://home.comcast.net/%7Eastrohammer/opinionspage2.htm)

Another option if you want the generic BV's and a nice 80mm scope is this package from Stellarvue. ChrisG can tell you how great the SV scopes are.... he owns a handfull of SV scopes. Just start a post saying "Hey ChrisG! Do you know anything about SV scopes?" ..... Then prepare for Chris to jump on his soapbox - lol. Anyway, find this one here:
http://www.stellarvue.com/sv80bv.html