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Are binoviewers worth it?


JohnC

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I find myself doing alot of visual stuff at the moment with the Celestron 120 XLT refractor, a truly great and underated scope.

I have never used a binoviewer before and am wondering if they are a worthwhile purchase for moon and planets.

Are they used for dso as well?

Any advice is most welcome......and if anyone has one for sale :)

Best regards

John

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Brantuk is right. I use mine on the back of an LX90. Fantastic on the Moon. It gives a real sense of 3D. Using both eyes is the way we were designrd. Our brain integrates the images and I think I get a better sense of both depth and resolution.

Tom

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I can only second Dave. I find that my eyes get tired very quickly when concentrating on planets or the sun.

With the binoviewer its so relaxed and therefor I can watch longer and think I see more.

With DSO's naturaly you are halving the light coming in so it will be harder to see already faint objects.

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Now I find the reverse. I can't get on with them at all. This makes me think that you should really try to get to an astrosoc and try them because it seems as if about 70 percent love them and 30 percent dislike them and no one falls in between! I have a lazy eye which may be at play in my case.

Olly

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i had a pair of cheap ish revelation binos, all are alittle fiddly to set up but when i focused them and used them on the Moon the view was amazing, truly a 3d effect, first time i used them i just looked at the Moon for an hour it was that good

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yes but only for moon and planets and only if your scope will come to focus with them without barlowing.

Thats exactly my take on them too. Good for lunar/planetary esp. if you don't have to mess around with Barlows and the like to bring them to focus.

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The Baader correctors for their Maxbright and Mark V binos are great for that. With them you get every scope into focus.

My old Tal 100 didn't had enough backfocus for a 2" diagonal, my Baader bino with the 2.6x corrector (and the T2 diagonal for the shortest possible light path) was fine though.

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I've had superb results on dso's with them as well. If they are set up right you feel like you're in the middle of a star field with glistenning objects all round you. That was in a CPC925 and Baader maxbright bv's. The blinking nebula was amazing. :)

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Any advice regarding the Astro engineering ones.

Been offered some at a good price.

My thought is they may be ok as a tester before shelling out on higher end items.

My wife could then use the cheaper ones for wildlife etc.

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After reading the replies to your question John, they seem very much worth it to me! :) I've heard that most users find that objects or starfields appear three dimensional. Because of the narrow spacing of the objectives, binoculars do not provide true depth perception; the brain is fooled into thinking it’s there. :)

The same effect is observed with binoviewers for the same reason;)

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Aside: I believe TRUE binocular vision provide some magnitude gain re. seeing faint DSOs. "Noise" cancellation between the eyes, apparently? True of "full" bino-scopes, I sense. Whether the (presumed!) beam-splitting losses of binoviewers negate this, I dunno. Sometimes tempted... A duplicate (lightweight) Hyperion 24? More expense <sigh> :)

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I have a pair of Denk Standards and really like looking at the moon through them in my 100mm refractor. However for me at least they do make balancing a bit harder (especially in my smaller scope) and I am also not sure I prefer them for planetary views (need to spend more time using them on Jupiter later in the year to reach a final conclusion). They are certainly comfortable to use though.

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Just to throw a spanner in the works, I had a pair for a while and could never get on with them. My eyes are quite different in their sensitivity and I just found them uncomfortable. I will see if I can have a go with some at a star party to check if there is a way I can get on with them because all the reports I see about them are positive.

Stu

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

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Any advice regarding the Astro engineering ones.

Been offered some at a good price.

My thought is they may be ok as a tester before shelling out on higher end items.

My wife could then use the cheaper ones for wildlife etc.

I actually bought a really cheap pair 2nd hand (the generic silver and black jobbies) and they seem ok although I have an impression of detail just not quite resolved. one benefit is that they're really light so you don't get the balancing problems.

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