thanks =)

[pellgarlic]

Yesterday, I bought a pair of the £14.99 "Rocktrail" 10x50 binoculars from Lidl that have been mentioned several times on these forums. (I realise there are some who consider them and any other binocular less than £100 "trash", but I'm just a beginner, and I believe they're a good "entry point").

I just wanted to expess my thanks to the general commmunity, and to the contributors of a couple of threads in particular, as it helped me with the process:

Thanks to cheffy (aka Martin) for this post:

http://stargazerslounge.com/equipment-discussions-help-telescopes-whole-setups/108633-collimating-rocktrail-binoculars.html

and also to all the contributors, but particularly argonaut, for the posts on this thread:

http://stargazerslounge.com/equipment-discussions-help-telescopes-whole-setups/97785-how-check-collimation-binoculars-supermarket.html

With these posts, and a related post on cloudynights (“Collimating” Binoculars - How To), I was able to end up with a satisfactory pair of the Rocktrail 10x50s =)

I couldn't test them in the shop, as the boxes were all sealed, and they had a "test" pair sitting out, indicating to me that they would be disinclined to that pursuit, and it's a small branch, so i wouldn't have been able to do it surreptitiously. I enquired about buying them, testing them outside, and returning them immediately if there was any issue, and they were fine with that.

The first two pairs i tested failed the "close one eye at a time while focused on something as far away as possible" test (which i shall herefore refer to as the "coeaatwfosafaap" test for brevity =P) quite badly - each image was significantly horizontally displaced, and in the second pair I tried, slightly vertically displaced also.

The third pair seemed perfectly collimated to me, so I kept those. When I got them home and tested them again, I found that they seemed as bad as the other two pairs I'd tried =( Don't know what it was, if the prisms moved in transit, or if my testing was less than ideal (being a noob to this), or if my brain/eyes had started to accommodate the poor collimation to some extent.

Anyway, I knew because of cheffy's post that these binoculars had prism adjustment screws, so that I would at least be able to tweak them, which I did, and got the images to line up =) I imagine that I could do a better job if I followed the more detailed instructions on the cloudynights page, but for now it'll do fine.

Although I can see that they are by no means high-quality, they seem very good value, and I had a great time using them last night - spent a good couple of hours scanning the sky, and although I intend to get a better quality pair of bins once I'm more versed in things, these Rocktrails seem better than the "Miranda" jobs I had borrowed from my father-in-law.

I could just make out 3 (I'm pretty sure) of Jupiter's moons, could detect the "smudge" of Andromeda (such a weird experience being awed by a smudge =P), found the Pleiades by noticing a faintly glowing patch of sky that was evident to the naked eye and wondering "what's that?", found the Hercules cluster, saw two meteors and about half a dozen satellites as I was just scanning generally, and a few other stars too =D.

It seems that there is some astigmatism in these bins however - when focused on Jupiter, I couldn't get the "flare" to go away completely - it would reduce in one direction, but start in the other before it diminished completely in the first, but I guess I shouldn't expect miracles from a 15 quid pair =) (it's possibly also to do with my potentially ham-fisted attempt at collimation... =P )

All in all, I'm happy that these will prove a good starting point for my new passion, and will suffice until I know more about what I want/need to feel comfortable spending a bit more. Thanks again guys - I'm glad I found this place =)

[pritc]

For the price,you cannot go wrong with a pair of these bins:)

I use mine all the time.

Great for a quick grab and view of the night sky.

Wayne

[pellgarlic]

yup - i'm amazed at what can be seen through a pair of "common" and indeed cheap 10x50s... i was one of the uneducated masses who thought "you need a telescope to star-gaze". my father-in-law has an 8" reflector which i had the privilege to look through about 10 years ago, when i got to see jupiter and it's moons, saturn and its rings, and some awesome close-ups of the moon. i always craved having another go, but somehow never got around to it. possibly partly because it seemed like such a rigmarole getting the scope all set up, and it spends most of its time all packed away (due to lack of space, not lack of desire to use it).

when the recent 2011fe supernova was "advertised" in the news, i asked him if he wanted to get the scope out and try to spot it. we tried a couple of nights, but were ultimately unsuccessful, but i did get to see jupiter and its moons again, which never fails to impress (can *just* make out that there's banding on the planet... =D ).

also, i had read that the supernova "can be seen with binoculars", and he had a pair of 10x50s (the aforementioned mirandas) which he brought too. i actually ended up spending the majority of time on those nights just scanning with the bins while my father-in-law and brother-in-law (unsuccessfully) tried to sight the supernova. i saw andromeda for the first time (didn't get the scope on it - that's on the list for the next time, hopefully not 10 years away =P ), enjoyed seeing mizar and elcor split (i haven't quite been able to make it out with the naked eye yet), and realised that practising astronomy (albeit a little limited compared to using a telescope) was easily within my grasp.

these rocktrails are well worth their asking price for the joy i experienced using them. i'm not a "cheery" person... some might even say i'm dour, but i couldn't help from grinning ear to ear while scanning the milky way =). now though, i find myself imagining what it would be like to be looking through a better pair. just as well xmas is coming up =D

[JamesM]

I can confess to owning a few pairs of these and although they clearly they don't manage chromatic aberration as well as the more expensive models, the price difference certainly makes them great value for money. If you can make them available during an outreach event, you're not going to worry if someone drops them or loses one of the eyecup caps!

James

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

Are these in lidl everywhere at the moment? If so i'm gonna run down and grab some

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

Just been down, they aren't in my local lidl.

More nights of naked eye...

[pellgarlic]

yeah, it seems they don't stay on the shelves long... i actually had a look at them on the tuesday, when there were about a dozen pairs, then went back on wednesday to buy a pair, and there were only about half a dozen left then. not sure if they're available "nationwide" at the same time, or if it varies from region to region. i think i was possibly just very lucky to have dropped in when they happened to have them in stock =)

[ecosse]

Just bought a pair of these today. My local store had loads in stock so I picked a box from near the bottom of the pile due to the top ones being a bit bashed and looking as if they had been opened.

Got home and opened them up, gave them a try out and the image looks perfect. Both legs seem to line up image wise and no evidence of "double vision".

Can't wait to have a look at the sky with them now

[jimmyjamjoejoe]