First Bins, First Light, First X-Eyed Night!

[Steven_J]

A lot of firsts happened across the past three days. I received my first pair of bins, a set of 10 x 50 Helios Fieldmasters from Harrison Telescopes on 07/04. High praise for Harrison who made the delivery three days after order on bank holiday weekend. Sod's law being what it is, the sky was cloudy not just then but everyday afterwards until the 10th!

To ease the impatient urge to curse the clouds, I put in an order for a planisphere, sky atlas and Binocular Astronomy by Stephen Tonkin. I have the planisphere & atlas now and feel vaguely annoyed I did not pick them up when I was given my scope 1.5 years ago. Talk about almost needed to learn the sky.

The last two nights have been wonderful however. I learned all the basic ways of navigating from the plough that I could see, split Mizar & Alcor, found Cassiopia, Leo including Regulus & sickle, Gemini, Arcturus(but due to the line of flats and city light pollution did not see the rest of Bootes) and a whole lot more of the Lyrids than I could with my naked eyes. There was an odd effect I noticed and I am not sure if that is due to my bins not being perfectly collimated, or that I have astigmatism with my left eye being very dominant over my right and haven't quite got the knack of using the bins with my glasses. I cannot get the two images to merge into a central one. At the moment it's more akin to me viewing with my left eye plus some extra sky space on the right side.

It is always a good feeling when an item precisely fills the purpose to picked it up for. I wanted bins to help me learn the sky, get me out more often and to be able to travel about on foot since I have a very small hill nearby with less building interference and carting my scope there and back, especially without a carrying case, was not doable. They are light, my grip is secure with the rubber coating, and I don't shake much at all when using them. Although I immediately understand why observing for any length of time with a 1kg+ pair and no tri/mono pod would be a lot harder than I realised before.

Either way, I just wanted to mark my return to SGL in this way and give a wave from Stevenage to anyone floating on the bins forum!

[NGC 1502]

Hi & welcome back to SGL.

You may well have already done this, but I thought it's worth a mention.

Have you set both sides of the bins to suit the distance between your eyes

by holding both barrels and moving them closer or further apart ?

Then there is the diopter adjustment, one of the eyepieces will have an in/out

movement. Look through the bins, close the eye on the side where the

adjustment is, and focus. Then look through the other side and turn the eyepiece to give a sharp view.

There are usually some markings so you can note the setting that's best for you.

Regards, Ed.

[Steven_J]

Hi Ed and thanks for the reply.

I have gone through and set the inter-pupillary distance as properly as I can. I started with the bins spread as far apart as possible and slowly drew them closer together until the view I had through both eyes was clean, crisp and had sharp edges. The right dioptre adjustment I did by first adjusting the focus via the central knob with my right eye closed and then carrying out the adjustment with the left eye closed. As best as I am currently able, the view is sharp and perfect.

What I have seen is the other seemingly negative point is that there are no markings on the bins for the dioptre or the IPD setting. The dioptre has simple markings showing a +, a - and a 0 with a dot to denote where the setting is, but no individual notches or lines to help mark the setting. Hopefully I haven't made that description too crazy.

Also, what I would ask is when trying to use glasses with bins is there some good advice on this? I've not found it as simple as just setting my glasses against the lenses after rolling the eye cups back and looking.

Cheers,

Steven

[Stargazer_00]

Hi Steven,

Welcome back to SGL I am also from Stevenage and have also just this week aquired a set of bins, Celestron 20x80. nice and big but also heavy. Going to pick up a mount this weekend or next.

I had a similar cross eye experience and noticed that if i pushed the bins closer togther, slightly beyond what felt perfect, it improved. You may also get this effect if you are viewing handheld as the images moves (quite alot after a while) and quite simply your dominant eye will recognise the drifting stars fractionally quicker than your other eye and it will appear to split the image in your brain making it feel like you are cross eyed!

I have the same markings on the bottom of my right EP. I haven't managed to get them into what I consider perfect focus yet because I have no mount. As the image is always a little in motion its impossible for me to tell for sure that I am in focus. Hopefully all this will be fixed when I select a mount.

Saturday is looking good for clear skies so fingers crossed

[Steven_J]

I gave that little trick a try and it does work! It's a little uncomfortable but it helps bring more of the image of both eyes into the same view. However this has confirmed it for me and I'm going to get some consultation done on contacts and laser surgery. I'm tired of having too many activities impacted by expensive glass.

As for the weather, might have some luck tonight as well as tomorrow. And if not, Binocular Astronomy came through today so I have some more materials to keep busy. And the mounts, if I go up even slightly into bigger bins I'm going to grab a nice, adjustable 6+ foot monopod. I just got instantly drawn to them by matching the bin convenience and somehow a tripod seems really cumbersome for bins.

[Stargazer_00]

Tonight is shaping up well for a Bino viewing session, few clouds creeping past so good to keep agile

I have my eye on a monopod, joystick head and possible a chest pod for reclined viewing.

On laser surgery for eyes, best money I ever spent. Ever. used to be really badly short sighted and now have 20/20 for over 6 years. Literally could not recommend the procedure more highly.

[Steven_J]

Just had a look out back and there's this horrible bank of cloud heading my way. Hoping it clears by true dark.

I have my eye on too many things. The chest pod looks quirky and brilliant for low-mid weight bins. I'm thinking about getting monoculars or bins for my mother-in-law who likes looking up at the sky and gets curious about things there, but isn't properly into astronomy. I already have a bug urging me to buy the Williams Optics 10x50 & one of the Helios Quantum giants. Most expensive hobby I've found yet, at least until I start mountain climbing.

[Stargazer_00]

Just got in, had the deck chair out. waited patiently for the larger breaks to push past Ursa Major

Scored M81,M82,M3,M101,M51 & M63

Nothing amazing but I knew where to look and definitely resolved a clear faint smudge on each, had some clear shape on M81 and M82 - they are awesome this time of year so close to zenith! Even in this terrible weather the bins allow you to move fast and take advantage of any breaks

Leo didnt clear up at all while I was out, nor did Cancer so some more there would've been nice, hey ho wasn't wasted I got a reasonable haul for 40 minutes. If I didn't have bins I would've seen nothing tonight but plasma TV.

EDIT: forgot; I 'think' i caught M96 as well, just couldn't be 100% so didnt cross if off my sheet