Short Sightedness

[Christopher]

Hi again,

I was wondering what implications being short-sighted, and requiring glasses might have for looking through a telescope? Can the focus compensate for short-sightedness?

Cheers,

Chris.

[matt]

I might be wrong, but I think that you won't have a problem if you're short sighted?

I know some people who are short sighted and don't have to wear their glasses when viewing through the eyepiece.

[rmcpb (Rob)]

I am long sighted and the scope handles that easily. The major problem I have is taking my specs on and off to use the planisphere, etc. At the SPSS my specs got dropped and trodden on so make a plan for the "naked" eye part of the process.

Cheers

[OneOfOne (Trevor)]

I think the biggest problem is if you focus the scope and someone else has a look, it will be out of focus for them if their eyesight differs a lot. I am usually on my own, so it doesn't matter, but I have "electrified" my focusser which makes the whole focus thing much easier anyway.

[Miaplacidus (Brian)]

I am minus 5 diopters, my visual acuity is worse than 6/60 (can't read the top letter on the chart), and I have no problem. The only potential problem is if you have a significant degree of astigmatism, in which case you might want to wear your glasses. That mainly means you'll need eyepieces with long eye relief.

If you're sharing the scope with someone, you might get sick of having to adjust focus each time, and you'll probably find it a bit of a pain having to slip your glasses on and off to read charts, etc, but apart from that you'll have no problem.

Cheers,

Brian.

[Christopher]

Thanks to all for your replies. That's good news, and I'm sure I won't be the first or last person to look through a telescope with flawed vision.

Cheers,

Chris.

[Rob_K]

I'm short-sighted and have no trouble with through-the-eyepiece viewing without glasses. The trouble comes in using the finderscope (red dot finder actually), and it's glasses-on, glasses-off! A real pain, but that's life. As far as different focus for different viewers goes, I don't know how this works - focus for me is quite different to that for my partner, who is long-sighted, but exactly the same for my daughter, who has good vision. ???

Cheers -

[rmcpb (Rob)]

Rob,

Maybe your daughter's eyes, being younger, are MUCH more accommodating for her. I read somewhere that as we get older our eyes lose some of their ability to focus over a wide range and you have just confirmed that, I think...