Bino beginner's luck

[neB]

Received my new AOE 11*70 binos a week or two ago and due to the cloudy weather up here, didn't get to use them until Sunday night.

I was actually out finishing off some work from earlier in the day and noticed the sky was clear for the first time in ages. So, out came the binos.

I was impressed with the view through the binos - having not used any this size before. Freehand movement was much more controllable than I imagined it would be. Though did get a bit of a shoulder cramp after about 30 mins.

Anyway, to the story. I was checking out M42 in Orion within about the first 10 minutes of use (after setting focus, IPD etc) and a meteor shot across my FOV. Nearly shat myself. I had a nice stable image up so it wasn't any reflection or movement. This was about 7:50 on Sun.

Then about 5 minutes later I was cruising around the sky almost straight up, slightly East, when a satellite went through my FOV.

Couldn't believe my luck.

Had a look a crux, LMC, Pleiades, and lots of other bits.

Also managed to identify the logo on the tail of a Qantas jet that went by just as I was finishing.

Fabulous first viewing. Wonder if this will happen every time I use them. Or ever again??

Cheers,
neB

[erick]

neB, the sky is full of satellites, both live and assorted space junk. You don't see many with the naked eye, but add a pair of binoculars and they seem, to me, to be whizzing all over the place. Well, I should really say, gracefully passing overhead. In a couple of hours, I usually see 10-15 pass through the field of view. There are a few sites that give you all the predicted passes - try J-Pass:-

http://science.nasa.gov/RealTime/JPass/20/

Now, in my experience, seeing meteors through the binoculars are a rarer occurrence - but it does happen. I was out Sunday night as well and the number of meteors seemed to average about 5 per hour to me - I wasn't keeping count - but that is up a bit on normal background. But none passed through my field of view. Given some were bright, I bet I would have jumped a mile!

Happy viewing. Look for Saturn in the late evening and see if you can spot Titan, its moon - might be a challenge in the 11x70s. Get up at 4:30am and look at Jupiter and its four main moons - should be simple in the 11x70s. Watch the moon over several days as it waxes - the 11x70s should show plenty of detail.

ps. get yourself a reasonably robust tripod. AOE probably supplied you with a tripod mount for your 11x70s as part of the package! You'll enjoy the improvement that makes to your viewing pleasure.

[jjjnettie]

Nice report Neb.
Glad your happy with the new bino's.

[rmcpb]

Viewing/cruising with binos is one of the great ways to enjoy our hobby. We often get too focused on seeing the details and forget the larger picture.

Keep looking up :)