Astronomy wearing glasses.

[cotterless45]

A recent visit to the opticians threw up a few interesting things. I had noticed that over the past year that I'd spent a long time focusing, depth of field not being great.

I wear specs and have always taken them off to look down eyepieces. My optician advised me that it was better that I kept them on and got near to the ep ( short relief). I'm waiting for my new specs and will go with this.He also identified that I had astigmatismin both eyes and would corect this with the new perscription.

It's probably a good thing to mention to your optician that you use scopes etc.

He was fascinated and asked to come to our next meeting.

[Pete Presland]

i nearly always take mine off as well when looking through the eyepiece

[estwing]

me too..

[pete_l]

I discussed this with my optician about 5 or 6 years ago. The only suggestion he could make (being completely unfamiliar with astronomy and the environment in which it's practiced) was that I should buy a second pair of glasses with a slightly more powerful prescription. He was clearly "winging it" and used the question more as a sales opportunity than a medical consultation

I did try another pair of glasses about ½dioptre stronger (I'm short sighted) that I got off the internet for a tenner. They made eyeballing the night sky clearer but did nothing for telescope work.

What I did do was buy some disposable contacts - but only for my "telescope" eye. They had the right correction for my astigmatism and provided normal far-vision. Pop one in just before I started to set up the scope and whip it out again when finished.

[libraryman]

Having been down the road of useing glasses for observing, i was in the fortunate position of being able to consider laser treatment.

Since having it done i've not regreted it at all, it makes astronomy so much easier for me, one still has to wear glasses for fiddly work but overall i can recommend the treatment if the reasons you want to have the improvment include visuall astronomy.

Ray

[Charon]

I take my glasses off too. Laser treatment does not cover all types of eye problems which in my case is a shame otherwise I would of had the treatment by now.

[RikM]

I always keep my glasses on to observe and am building up a set of long eyerelief EP's to help with this. I don't have astigmatism, just normal myopia, but I get much clearer / sharper views leaving my glasses on. I also sketch at the eyepiece, and I get fed up taking them off to look, then putting on to draw a dot, then off again etc...I can't be bothered with all that faff.