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Old 09-12-2007, 05:27 PM
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Satchmo
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Sydney
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For those interested in the technicalities of the issue heres a focal plane vignetting plot of an F10 cone through a 26mm aperture ( ie Denkemeir binoviewer ) with a 114 mm pathlength. It shows why a 24mm Panoptics shows vignetting at the edge and not a typical 20mm eyepiece

If you trace the semi-aperture at the fieldstop of Denk 21mm eyepiece ( about 11mm ) the light transmission is about 70% at the edge, which is on the margin of casual detectability for the human eye. A 24mm of 14mm semi-aperture indicates 45 % illumination which will be obviously appear vignetted to the human eye.

There lies the dillema of binoviewers. The long internal pathlength demands a slow F ratio to get acceptaable off axis lighting which means a narrow field of view compared to a true Newtonian binocular. Astronomy like life is full of compromises if you want to take a shortcut .
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Last edited by Satchmo; 09-12-2007 at 06:26 PM.
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