PeterW

There is no NV “Galaxy filter”, they do show up nice (but small, unless you have a huge, fast scope), but the only help you can give is a long pass filter. The galactic type and star burst regions can make some galaxies more impressive with NV, but they tend to be a nice add on, rather than the main reason to invest in NV. Peter

All these binoculars are pretty f5.6, so the same exit pupil and brightness. The bigger models show rain the e stars and have a more zoomed in view….. more light, but more spread out. peter

Shhh…. Don’t tell anyone, but you can see quite a few of these hydrogen nebulae and galactic cirrus with mere binoculars (and magic filters)…. Peter

If everyone optimised the use and distribution of the lighting they used then we’d all have a far better view and wouldn’t have to spend so much money on cameras/filters/NV/petrol…. Think of the combined CO2 savings. Peter PS If I had a £ for everytime someone complained about the cost of NV (without actually seeing what it could deliver) I’d be living on my own private (dark) island by now) 😉

My 13mm Naglers were lovely and compact, but there is some distortion, I am beginning to appreciate reading glasses and couldn’t quite see the whole of the 82degree field, so I moved over to Morpheus. They’re narrow enough for bino use, but much bigger than the Naglers, eye placement can be a little harder due to the longer eye relief. They have a good following, the APM 12.5 ultrawide more so, but they’re a bit more expensive. Peter

Almost too bright on the Monkeyhead! Peter

When your all shielded up you Cana get better dark adaption than normal as ambient light is blocked. Filter and eyepiece fogging can be a risk, my face shield keeps my breath out and anti-fog spray could also help if needed on cold nights. peter

The benefits of 82degree ep is lost a bit as you can’t easily swivel your eyes to see the whole field. I’ve replaced my 13m Nagler with Morpheus as they are just as immersive, but have more w yet relief and less distortion and I can see the whole field (which I couldn’t quite with the Naglers). I once looked through some (nominally) 90degree field of view Nikon WX, amazing, but i did note that I couldn’t see the edges when viewing- I could “see further” if i deliberately looked “round the corner” of the field. I’ve used 7mm ep (cheap ultrawide) in my 70mm on the moon fine in the past, might replace them with 6.5mm Morpheus. As Peter notes centring your eyes at high powers can be fiddly and as in note above you can’t move your eyes. About too much or you lose the view in one eye… hence the move the bino, not your eyes suggestion. peter

I only need to use the laser occasionally and even with lithium, mine complains if it gets cold. Peter

I’ve posted on my filter mounting in a thread in the bino forum. I do have OIII and UHC, but with my light pollution and my aim to see large hydrogen nebulae I going to filter as hard as I can. Peter

As someone pointed out the lack of clear guidance on adding filters to binocular eyepieces I thought I’d post how I have done the is recently that seems to work. Different binocular eyepieces have different internal diameters and depths and so you might need to play about to find the best option for your specific model. “Normally” the filter is smaller than the eyepiece/eyecup hole so you want someway to “fill the gap”. I use 3 mm thick sticky-back black neoprene foam sheet. I stick it to paper/thin card (which I blacken with a sharpie). Then I cut a hole that is slightly narrower than the filter threads. The idea is that you want to be able to “thread” the filter onto the foam ring. Next to cut the outside of the foam ring a little bit larger than the eyecup opening. You want to use the foam compression to help grip and stop the filter falling out. You might want to trim the paper back round the edge so it doesn’t reach the edge to help this. I put these in with the filter on the binocular side of the foam so if they come off the foam they will be trapped and not fall into the grass. This probably won’t work for all binoculars, I have some 7x50 where a single layer of duct tape wrapped onto the filter threads enables the filter to be push fit to the eyepieces. If the filters are larger than the eyecups then you could probably glue a foam cylinder to the foam ring that you could slide over the eyepieces to hold the filters in place. Remember for best use of filters on binoculars you need to block all straylight around the eyepiece by using a bino bandit, observing hood etc.. or you’ll be distracted by reflections from the filters which will make seeing faint stuff harder. Hope this helps, sure other people have come across other ways to achieve the same thing. Peter

Sounds a great start. I get finding stuff by rearing a laser in the handle groove. Then I just move about using skysafari fields of view with the field of view circle. Need to keep the pointed warm as it hates the cold. The great thing with binoculars is the comprarively large field of view and the non-inverted field of view so you can look around with smaller binoculars and have the same star fields in the larger binoculars without mental gymnastics. Peter

A 2XL fishing jilet from Decathlon with lots of zipped pockets to hold stuff without me having to open my coat in the cold. I plan to line some pockets with neoprene foam and maybe add use a heater to keep some things warm. Hopefully more use than the current “single bucket” I have with my current “bumbag”. Peter PS no idea why I’m lying down in the picture, I did knackeR my back before xmas, but it’s fixed now.

It’s more about their reputation, if enough people complain locally, to the councils and to their customers then they’ll have to change to stop the bad press… Starlink we’re pressured into changing their plans so their satellites were less annoying…. Keep up the pressure and hopefully you get your skies back and they keep making plentiful produce. peter

Twickenham looks like a yellow/green alien invasion when they’re cooking their grass… worst on evenings when there is cloud to scatter off. Keep up the pressure so they either add proper blinds or turn the lights out after a specific time. There is plenty of evidence that light at night is no good for man and beast. Light pollution is a notifiable nuisance and food growing is not one of the (sadly) allowed exemptions. Checked the 2021 viirs light lolly to on data… ouch, nasty red spot… it’s visible from space! peter

If you sit on a reclining chair you could tilt the tripod back so only 2legs are on the ground, then you could get underneath them more easily. The monopod is good for this. I initially tried using an observing hood, but it falls back when looking up high and doesn’t block light from the front,!hence the face visor I made. A simple idea could be a sheet of thin black neoprene foam sheet with 2 holes cut in that you can stretch over the eyepieces and block all light from ahead,, you could hook the hood over it. The commercial bino-bandit can work with some binoculars. I have used 10nm OIII filters too on the veil (different binoculars), which worked OK. Should try some UNh CN I have, but I’m not sure how well they’ll block the pollution. The recent filter testing post on CN is here. https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/722322-pushing-the-filter-envelope-observing-galactic-nebulae-with-handheld-binoculars-under-suburban-skies/page-2 The conclusion is for nebulae you want narrow, especially under poor skies. I am using 1.25” filters where I’ve held them in a neoprene foam ring that them push fits the eyepieces. I have one set of adapters for each pair of bins. I use sticky back foam sheet which I stick it to a piece of paper/thin card. This gives a hard rim that the filter thread can “screw into”. As these filters are very reflective you have to eliminate all light from around your ether or you’ll just see a reflection of yourself. The good thing with binoculars is that the fields of view are quite large and the view the right way up so navigating is relatively easy. Using the sky safari app with a ring on screen the size of your field of view helps you know how far to move and the likely scale of things you’re looking for. With better skies than a me there should be plenty of stuff to go after. Peter

First clear sky for ages, not especially dark, given I live on the edge of London and have streetlights directly shining into the garden. Tool of the day, some APM 10x50ED binoculars on a cheap monopod with trigger ball head for stable views. I put some custom flocked dew/straylight shields on the objectives to keep the worst of the local lighting out. First I focussed them up on the Orion belt area, then I popped in my two new 5.5nm Baader hydrogen beta filters (from some recent filter testing threads on CloudyNights) and popped on my custom face visor/straylight shield. Without this any light around the eyepieces will mess the view as these filters darken things quite a lot, though enough stars are visible and sky isn’t totally dark. The Orion Nebula was much easier and wider with the wings showing with averted vision. Moving my eyes about made some of the stars pulse as they went in and out of averred vision, which was an odd sight. No sight of the nearby flame nebula though. Next to consult sky safari for some hops for some things to find. First off the rosette, hopping down a line from Meissa through Betelgeuse. Hint of something quite large with a couple of notable stars nearby, checked sky safari – bingo. Next to check on an old favourite the monkeyhead near M35 in gemini Nothing obvious, but a suggestion of something to the left of a pair of stars – again bingo. Final (quick) look as one filter kept falling out, I went closer to the zenith, calling first at the Pleiades and then up into Perseus to see if the california nebula might make an appearance…. Definitely a faint wide slightly tilted diagonal band just above menkib, though my neck didn’t like looking so high – again checked with sky safari. So 3 objects not normally suburban binocular viewing using filters that should “only be used on the horse head nebula with a large apertures under dark skies”….. or maybe not. Given I’m looking somewhat in the direction of a streetlight and the only dark adaption I am getting is the time behind the face shield, this seems quite good. Things to fix. I need to eliminate every potential light leak in the straylight visor as I could detect some tiny leaks with averted vision and these were annoying. I’m going to need to remake the foam rubber push-fit filter holders so they wedge in the eyepieces better and don’t fall out into the grass so easily. I also forgot I had the move-shoot-move Z-V bracket on top of the ball head that I should have used to add some extra height and make higher elevation viewing easier. Next time i’ll put some blackout material over the washing line and set up a reclined camping chain behind it so I can observe for longer and get better dark adapted. See what details I can dig out and maybe go after a few more of the larger nebulae. Peter

EEA is what you make of it…. Watching frames build up over a few minutes each and then assembling them with minimal extra work…. Doesn’t sound like imaging .. and you get to see a “bigger picture”. Too many people only look at “the usual suspects”, there’s plenty more stuff off the beaten path. Similarly the whole of cygnus and Cepheus have lots of nebulous stuff for you to follow and dig up…. Whatever takes your fancy. peter

Grab some more overlapping frames and stitch them together… the whole area up from here has lots of nebulosity out past the Cone nebula! Peter

Good bins, good eyepieces…. Good views! peter

If you have a “skywatcher” EQ mount tripod there is “puck” adapter you can find that converts to a 3/8” screw for attaching other stuff to. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-star-adventurer/astro-essentials-38-photo-adapter-for-az-eq6-neq6-and-eq6-r-tripods.html That widget on your picture should be the mounting bracket that ought to slide along the centre bar so you can change the balance point as you move the binoculars in altitude. I had some old 25x100 and the bar was not removable, so odd to see it not connected?! Peter

At, a Yellow Book… https://clarkvision.com/articles/visastro/index.html Peter

The rule will be to do with getting the size of galaxies bigger so your eyes can see them more easily. I’d start with the rule of thumb as it stands with 82mm or maybe a little more, certainly wouldn’t double it…. But tell us how you get on. peter

Great minds think alike…. For keeping things warm in my pockets and for powering/recharging things at the same time. Didn’t need the version with lights on. Peter

…. The question “do you have any binoculars” didn’t come up… there are some good options <£100 and the rest could go on good guides. Learn your way around, go to some clubs and Se what stuff will show you. Peter