Dummy

What is that? Is that Ptolemys cluster? 

Kind of reminds me when I saw it once by accident with my scope when I was admiring the stars. I didn't even know What I was looking at until I realized I might be looking at a cluster.

Regardles, excellent image, very bright and detailed. All those stars make me wonder every time.

Hello!

Welcome and good luck. Looking forward to your first attempt at imaging. 

Whew whee that's some professional work right there! Haven't seen that many views of the Pleiadis but this is one of the best. I didn't even know three of the little stars in that row were orange.

I don't know why for some reason this image makes me think of Star Control II, I guess it's that good 😆

Yes very nice indeed. I can't trully say I'm all that excited about nebulae DSO's but this is a beautiful excpetion. Viewing it full size is a real treat. Great Job man 😃

Wow absolutely amazing. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about but this doesn't seem to me all that different from some HST picture of a globular. I zoomed all the way in and you couldn't all the stars in there even if you sat down looking at it for a year. 😮

Well, can't even say I'm an amateur imager or something, but that is a great photo. In my view at least..

Kinda plays with your mind this thing. Makes you wonder about stuff haha 😄

A general thank you to everyone. Weird, I didn't notice all the recent replies. I thought I would get notified, excuse me for the late reply.

Thanks again Nik great tip. Hope I got it right. I'll try it as soon as possible.

15 hours ago, Stu said:

The key point is that normal short or long sighted-ness is corrected by the focus adjustment on a scope or binoculars so there is no need to wear your glasses when observing. Astigmatism isn’t corrected so you still need to wear your glasses for observing. You should likely go to get your eyes tested then you would know, and would get an up to date prescription and glasses! 

Good to know. Thanks for your concern Stu you're right I have been neglecting myself a bit. Been through a little tough time the past couple of years. Haha stupid me thought about new binoculars instead of 10 year old glasses. 😅

Thanks all. Hope to be useful to the forum and draw as much as I can from this vast community.

12 hours ago, Stu said:

Hi @Dummy

I’m not sure I can be too much help, but I’ll try.

Our sponsors FLO deliver internationally so depending on where you are, they may be able to help.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/delivery-information.html
 

What sort of budget do you have? They have a pair of Opticron 20x80 at £149 which have good reviews:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/observation-binoculars/opticron-oregon-observation-20x80-binoculars.html

I assume you have some form of tripod or support to use them with? Binoculars of this size are hard to hand hold and keep steady so it’s worth considering this too.

Regarding glasses, do you have astigmatism? If not then you can observe without glasses just as well, but if you do then yes you will need to wear them. The Opticrons have 17mm eye relief so should be fine either way.

Great help Stu. I just went through the observing binoculars catalog and they have a really good selection. Moreover they do deliver to my country (Israel, apologize if that offends anybody) and some products even seem cheaper that on Amazon, but I'm guessing it's only the base price and unfortunately after shipping and customs I believe it would sum up to be more expensive. Not to mention I'll have to deal with clearing customs by myself here when the package arrives as opposed to Amazon taking care of all of that during purchase. But at the very least you've helped me with another, even better option than my initial three so thank you for that, the Opticron in fact seem very well for their price. Wonder if I could find them somewhere else.

I have a pretty good regular camera tripod, sure. Regarding astigmatism, excuse me for being a little ignorant as an eyeglasses wearer, but that's the condition where one eye has problems\difficulties with focusing right? I think.. We just call it by another name here haha.. Well sadly I haven't been to the eye doctor for a long time actually but I think I remember something about my right eye having some sort of issue besides normal deteriorating eyesight. Nevertheless I managed to see quite good through my Levenhuks with and without my glasses. Only problem I can mention is centering the view was a little difficult and finding the appropriate position for the eye cups. Needless to say, viewing without the glasses was easier through the bins but was a pain in the sense that every time I wanted to locate a target with my eyes I had to put the glasses back on and off to view through the bins again. That's why I see myself as a dummy 😆

Thanks again Stu, for your time and help. 

12 hours ago, Nik271 said:

I regularly use my 20x80 Skymasters with glasses. The eyecups can be foded back and then there is sufficient eye relief to use them with glasses.

Just bear in mind that the actual aperture of the Skymasters (the non-pro 20x80 version) is something like 72-73mm, I have measured this myself and the same results have been obtained by many others. So if your Levenhuks have true aperture of 70mm you won't get much improvement in terms of light grasp.

Celestron binoculars sometimes arrive out of collimation, again this is well documented. I bought mine from Amazon and they arrived well collimated. In any case be sure to have the option to return them if they are not in perfect order. 

This may sound off putting but actually I'm very happy with my Skymasters and use them regularly. They show quite a lot of deep sky objects, wonderful for the large nebulas like the Veil and have a good field of view. They are sharp across 80% of the field which is also normal for budget binoculars. The chromatic aberration is well controlled, in the centre of the field even the Moon shows very little purple fringing. 

Good luck with your search!

 

Nik 

 

PS. I recommend to avoid the 25x100 unless you have a permanent mounting set up, they will be much more expensive and very heavy.

Yes to tell you the truth I think I would have eventually chosen the Skymaster but since I bumped into the Bresser's by chance on Amazon.uk I'm back to square one in terms of comparison.

Question, what do you mean by the Skymasters aperture isn't actually 80mm? I recall hearing about such a thing throughout my web searches but I never payed any attention to it. Why would the aperture not be 80mm? Isn't that like false advertising or something? Or do you mean that the lenses light gathering capability is if they were less than 80mm long?

How would I go about measuring my Levenhuk's actual lens size?

I have something along the lines of a regular camera tripod, adequate for the 15x70, hope it will work well with an 80mm pair too.

Thank you for your opinion an time 😄

11 hours ago, Barry Fitz-Gerald said:

Hello!....and Welcome,

I am sure you will get some replies in due course regarding your bino question.........I am sorry I cannot help with this as I do not have binos in that size range. But what I will say (not on the subject I know) is that if the SVBONY company ever produce something in that size range, 70 to 80mm they would be well worth considering, because I have tried their 8x32 and 10x42 SV202 ED range and found them to be amazing performers for a very low price. They were reviewed by Neil English I think, who was spot on with his assesment. Even though I would not normally use the smaller model for astro, they showed pin point stars in a nice wide field - the 42's were even better - I tried them agains a pair of 10x42 Leica Trinovids and they were pretty close!  Unfortunately the biggest apertures I can see from them is 50mm (and not in the SV202 range) which is below your size requirement.

Good luck with your search!

 

Well I recognize the name SVBONY from when I purchased a tripod adapter for my 15X70. I didn't know they make binoculars too. Anyway I already have a 10x50 pair (Olympus DPSi) which I got as a gift and what spurred me to upgrade to a 15x70. I guess I'll have to wait a while with my upgrade. Thanks though!

And about the other issue, good to know, hope it wasn't wrong of me to ask about it here in a new topic. Thanks for the clarification 😁

Hello SGL community! 

I'm new to the forums so excuse me if this not common or prohibited behavior but I wanted to know if it is okay to bump a topic I posted but got no replies. It's been two days I think since I posted it.

I've known this site for a couple of years and I came here for help once so I thought I could ask for advice again. 

As I was spellchecking this I noticed that people have viewed my topic and I guess this topic is sort of a bump in itself so excuse me anyway... 

3 hours ago, alexbb said:

As I described, it was done from different places, multiple years. But at the darkest where I gathered the 20h of narrowband with the C9.25 we measured 21.7-21.8 SQM, that meaning a 6+ magnitude naked eye or Bortle 2.

Closer to home - half an hour drive - we have a decent dark place, Bortle 3, we can see villages' glow at horizon or the 300k+ inhabitants city at ~30km lighting the vest sky. But at zenith we measure >21.4 SQM, usually 21.5+. A 6 magnitude can also be visible from here.

Andromeda is easily visible from a rural sky. When at zenith and the sky is clear and frozen, I can see it even from the city sky if there are no close direct lights in my line of sight.

Oh well, in that case I guess where I thought was really dark here, which is about 3 4 hours drive, wasn't all that dark 😅. According to a light pollution map I saw before, it was supposed to be something like a 5~6 magnitude area. I remember seeing Andromeda with my eyes like a really big oval smudge, and even that was when I was looking at it indirectly. You know, looking at something near it. Through my scope was barely any better. I could just make out the brighter inner part, but not much beyond that.

If what you say is true then I'm guessing my Celestron 130 newtonian is no good, they sky weren't all that dark or something was wrong with my eyesight\glasses.

Good to know though, thanks for the information.

Wow..

Wish I had the means, opportunity and knowledge to take such photographs. Hope this isn't a stupid question, but can you tell how dark the sky was where you took that picture?

I mean, magnitude-wise 😅

I've been to the darkest place I could find in my country and I could barely see Andromeda..

Hello again dear community!

A couple of years ago I came here for help about 15x70 binoculars. I was really pleased with my final choice and I have to say, the Levenhuk Bruno Plus were really a good pair of binoculars for my budget and options. I got good use out of them in my 3~ magnitude backyard.

I hope this doesn't make me seem selfish or greedy but I recently thought about upgrading to a 20x80 pair. I realize the difference might be negligible for my amateur eyes but sadly I do not have too many options other than ordering a pair on Amazon. Local retailers where I live don't offer much variety in the 20x80 specs as far as I know, and even if they did I'm absolutely sure it would be beyond my budget, let alone 25x100 ones.

So to sum up, I'm undecided between the Celestron Skymaster, the Zhumell 20x80 and the Bresser Astro Spezial (not the SF version) which by chance I found out about on Amazon.uk a couple of days ago. I've considered Celestron's Skymaster Pro but I would have to invest double my budget for those what with shipping and customs.

Now I wear glasses and from what I gather there are a few differences between these. For example, according to Celestron's website the Skymaster aren't fully multi coated but their FOV is 0.5 degrees larger than the other two and the eye relief is stated 18mm. The Zhumell and Bresser are fully multi coated but the Zhumell's eye relief is 17mm and the Bresser website doesn't say about the Astro Spezial. Aside from that, the Skyamster look like they're a bit sturdier and better built than the others. Surprisingly it seems the Astro Spezial are the cheapest although I might be mistaken.

I know I can't expect too much quality out of these three, but I was hoping someone could offer their opinion or experience, if they have previously owend or used any of them actually. I'm sorry but I probably don't have easy access to higher end brands and models in case you think I shouldn't waste my time with these in the first place.

I apologize for the long rant and any grammatical errors, and thanks in advance for any advice or replies!