BinocularSky

I've been finding it possible, but difficult, in my 16x70,as long as there's no Moon or other LP & the sky is transparent.

As others have indicated, tripods with binos are a pain, unless you can offset them - otherwise you have a minimum of 5 legs (depending on whether or not a seat is included) involved in a territorial dispute over the same little snippet of spacetime. My favoured solution for anything up to 16x70 is a monopod and trigger-grip head (the monopod doesn't need to be vertical to work). Bigger than that, I prefer a parallelogram. I have a page devoted to mounting binoculars here and have posted about it in these forums as well, eg .

Canon uses different IS systems. The earliest ones used a vari-angle prism, and the cheaper (relatively!) ones still use this. The premium ones like the new 14x32 do use the same stabilisation system that they use in their top-end camera lenses.

As DaveL59 noted, it's usually miscollimation. The "until adjusted to the bridge of your nose" usually means "only looking through one tube" . Unfortunately, the Gumtree ad is no longer available, so I can't see which Bressers it is, but the very cheap ones are usually quite simple to conditionally align (full collimation is not easy without a proper optical bench). If you can let me have a pic of them, if it's one I've done in the past, I can send you details of how to do it.

The latest edition of the Binocular Sky Newsletter is ready. As well as the usual overview of DSOs, variable and double stars, this month we have: Explore the southern (from temperate latitudes!) Milky Way Lunar occultations of bright stars, including a graze The ice giants and Vesta are back! Comet C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) I hope this helps you to get the best out of these extremely short nights with your binoculars or small telescopes. To pick up your free copy, just head over to http://binocularsky.com and click on the Newsletter tab, where you can subscribe (also free, of course) to have it emailed each month, and get archived copies.

The latest edition of the Binocular Sky Newsletter is ready. As well as the usual overview of DSOs, variable and double stars, this month we have: Explainer: Integrated magnitude and object visibility Four lunar occultations of bright stars Comet C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) Vesta returns to the morning sky at the end of the month I hope this helps you to get the best out of these extremely short nights with your binoculars or small telescopes. To pick up your free copy, just head over to http://binocularsky.com and click on the Newsletter tab, where you can subscribe (also free, of course) to have it emailed each month, and get archived copies.

The person you want to contact is Wolfgang ("Wolfi") Ransburg.

https://www.teleskop-express.de/

I believe TS still do a version of this. Might be worth contacting Wolfi and see what he can suggest.

I reviewed the Altair version for the November 2016 issue of BBC Sky at Night magazine. Very capable instrument, which I thought was good value at the time. * Eyepieces: yes, all 1.25" eyepieces should fit, but do make sure that you get pairs from the same batch, because there can sometimes be variations between batches. Also, some with steps or safety-tapers on the barrels may not seat squarely. Max: I don't know; I only used the ones that Altair provided; I thought they were very good indeed: nice wide flat field. * Build Quality: Robust. * Collimation (as per @Peter Drew's suggestion): Via eccentric rings on the front of the objectives. Note that standard 100mm lens tools may not extend far enough for the outer ring. * Mounting: I used a UA T-mount (ideal!) and a Manfrotto 501 (which has a rated 6kg capacity compared to the 8kg of your proposed 503). I don't know if the 503 would be adequate; the main issue is the increased turning moment as you get to higher elevations, which results in you have to increase the altitude tension or readjust the position of the QR plate in the head. With the 501, only about 55 deg was possible. I hope that helps.

You missed the glorious red rose across the lake...

As do I - had it drummed into me in my Data Analysis module at university. It's a hard life being a pedant: I also get "triggered" (I believe that's the term that's in mode nowadays) by the use of plural verbs with singular collective nouns, misplaced modifiers, incorrect use of reflexive pronouns, and superfluous use of "personally". The UK media are awful for these!

The latest edition of the Binocular Sky Newsletter is ready. As well as the usual overview of DSOs, variable and double stars, this month we have: * Mercury in evening twilight * Lunar occultations of bright stars * A potentially good binocular comet I hope this helps you to get the best out of these rapidly shortening nights with your binoculars or small telescopes. To pick up your free copy, just head over to http://binocularsky.com and click on the Newsletter tab, where you can subscribe (also free, of course) to have it emailed each month, and get archived copies.

+1

Late to the party but: <insufferable_pedant> A monocular: A binocular: A pair of binoculars: </insufferable_pedant> 🤣 But seriously, whichever you use, the only people who will misunderstand your meaning are those who make a full-time occupation of being awkward.

The April edition of the Binocular Sky Newsletter is ready. As well as the usual overview of DSOs, variable and double stars, this month we have: * A grazing lunar occultation * The "extra star" in Cygnus * The "realm of the galaxies" * International Dark Sky Week I hope this helps you to enjoy these shortening spring nights with your binoculars or small telescopes. To pick up your free copy, just head over to http://binocularsky.com and click on the Newsletter tab, where you can subscribe (also free, of course) to have it emailed each month, and get archived copies.

It's an intermittent one (and, of course, it's not happening today, so I can't screenshot it for you) - sometimes, in full screen mode, when I hover my cursor over the bottom left of the screen where location, date, time, etc are shown, the menu below it does not appear; reappears when I hit F11 to go into windowed mode. I recall reading (Github?) of others having a similar issue.

Thanks, @alexwolf - has the lack of lower menu bar when in fullscreen mode also been solved?

Hi @dazzystar, I've just hit this problem as well. I solved it by editing the user_locations.txt file. You should find the location you entered in there, but with the wrong Lat and Long. Simply correct the Lat adn Long and save it, then fire up Stellarium and you should be able to select the location with the correct co-ords. HTH

I'm getting some weird behaviour from Stellarium 0:21:3. (It's years since I installed it on a new computer, so it could be user-idiocy 🙂 ) I'm trying to put my location into it. I insert the correct Lat, Long, & Elevation, check "Use current location as default" (and I've tried not doing that), insert Name of town, etc., then when I click on "add to list", it does so, but changes the Lat and Long to what it was previously (it seems to "think" I'm in south London!). Any ideas? Edit: Solved by editing the user_locations.txt file.

The March edition of the Binocular Sky Newsletter is ready. As well as the usual overview of DSOs, variable and double stars, this month we have: Ice giant Uranus's last gasp for a few months The Realm of the Galaxies is back with us Grazing occultation of λ Cancri I hope this helps you to get the best out of these rapidly shortening nights with your binoculars or small telescopes. To pick up your free copy, just head over to http://binocularsky.com and click on the Newsletter tab, where you can subscribe (also free, of course) to have it emailed each month, and get archived copies.

Confusingly, "field glasses" has at least three meanings (context is all! 🙂 ); I meant the first of these.: Originally it meant low magnification non-prismatic binoculars. Although they were not prismatic, they were not Galilean either. The erect image was achieved by the inclusion of a relay lens (or lenses) between the objective and eyepiece, in the same manner as in early nautical and terrestrial telescopes that had positive eyepieces. Field glass magnification was low because greater magnification required an unwieldy greater length. Some time later it came to be used to mean "any binocular designed primarily for 'use in the field' (i.e. outside)" and then to be interchangeable with "binocular". It can also mean a robust prismatic monocular. HTH

The February edition of the Binocular Sky Newsletter is ready. As well as the usual overview of DSOs, variable and double stars, this month we have: Uranus still available Dark Skies festivals An unusual binocular mount I hope this helps you to enjoy these lengthening winter nights with your binoculars or small telescopes. To pick up your free copy, just head over to http://binocularsky.com and click on the Newsletter tab, where you can subscribe (also free, of course) to have it emailed each month, and get archived copies.

Had a message from Paolo Morini (an Italian astronomer) yesterday - we've been swapping ideas on this. He has the carbon version and has managed to put an M10 stud into the end of the counterweight arm and has another weight on it. He tells me that it balances his Fujinon 70mm binos (10x70 and 16x70).

Field glasses. Can't help with the date, though, but likely late 19th/early 20th century.