Big bins, dark skies, too many stars!

[Alastair Rae]

I bought a pair of Helios Apollo high res 15x70 bins back in the spring but they've not had much use due to clouds and light pollution. I mount them on a photographic tripod I use for my birding spotting scope. Anyway, we went camping in Suffolk on Saturday night and had reasonable skies. The Milky Way was about detectable with the naked eye.

I thought I would start by looking for M13 in Hercules. I could see the parallelogram but when I tried to line up the bins I was completely lost. It seemed like the difference in brightness between the lower and higher mag stars was not as obvious. It was impossible to work out which were the main stars of the constellation and which were the background. Long story short - I really enjoyed the view but it was totally frustrating not being able to navigate. I didn't manage to find M13.

Ironically, I bought the bins because I thought they would be easier to use than a scope. I have a little 80mm frac which I can use on the same tripod. I think I might have been better off with that because I could have lined up eta Her with the RDF and maybe worked from there. Also I find that the photographic tripod is pretty useless above about 75 deg so that limits the choice of targets.

Ho hum. I only get a few dark nights away from London and space is limited in the car what with all the camping equipment etc. But I guess equipment mistakes is all part of the learning curve.

[Tinker1947]

You may want to get some bins with a weaker Magnification getting the light in is important but a wider FOV will help you identify star groups, once this is in you mind your bigger 15X70's will be much better as you will then know what you are looking at....

[cantab]

Something like this maybe? http://www.scopesnskies.com/prod/binocular/red-dot/tripod-bracket.html

[MAN or ASTROMAN]

I must admit to being a fan of Binocular astronomy-even if objects near to the zenith are truly a pain in the neck! I use Celestron 15x70's,and I managed to find M13 without much difficulty the other week (beginner's luck).My favourite object at the moment is 'The Coathanger', areal treat through Binos. The Celestrons have a FOV of 4.4 degrees.

[JamesF]

It does take a bit of getting used to. I've never observed under city skies and here we have NELM of easily 5.5+, but I still occasionally get that "Oh, you have got to be kidding!" moment when I try new kit or view an area of the sky I'm not familiar with for the first time. Take a deep breath and go back to basics. You'll get there in the end and it will become much easier as you get your eye in. I can find M13 in my 15x70s without thinking now, and I found Comet Garradd without too much trouble earlier this year. It's far from impossible, but being slightly overwhelmed initially is not an unreasonable reaction

James

[mtc666]

I've experienced similar with my birding bins in unfamiliar skies. Its astounding to see so many stars in a wide fov. I wonder though, in your set up whether a 'finder' wouldn't be useful. A cheap, non-magnified one would allow you to star hop sufficiently to train the big bins where you want them. Maybe?

[Alastair Rae]

I've experienced similar with my birding bins in unfamiliar skies. Its astounding to see so many stars in a wide fov. I wonder though, in your set up whether a 'finder' wouldn't be useful. A cheap, non-magnified one would allow you to star hop sufficiently to train the big bins where you want them. Maybe?

I'm investigating the RDF bracket that cantab suggested above.

[TheNorthernMonkey]

Try knocking them out of focus slightly, it makes the dimmer stars more difficult to see, but the brighter ones are still visible.

[Bart]

Although navigation would be slightly more difficult through dark skies, with your wide FOV you should have been able to detect M13. I'd imagine its a case of sticking with it. M13, being one of the brighter messiers, should be no trouble, esp in dark skies, it should stick out nicely. I'm off to France this weekend and am bringing my 15x70s to get some of the low lying Saggitarius objects with the more southerly position. Keep trying, binocs are lovely to use in dark or darkish skies.

[Spec-Chum]

Try knocking them out of focus slightly, it makes the dimmer stars more difficult to see, but the brighter ones are still visible.

I have my finderscope permanently (very slightly) out of focus for this very reason

I really didn't like it when I focussed it to a pinpoint and soon spun it back again...

[glowjet]

The idea of mounting a finder to you bins/mount is often undertaken by DIY enthusiasts in one form or another, the one advertised looks good, but I notice it comes complete with an RDF of the narrow tube type, which I personally don`t like, it`s a pity they do not sell the bracket on it`s own, then you can mount an RDF of your choice. Another method is to get hold of a 1mw to 5mw green laser, which are quite cheap and make a mounting for it on the bins, once you have centred it to the FOV you will know precisely where you are in the night sky, a good star map and you should be able to hop about

John.

[Bart]

The idea of mounting a finder to you bins/mount is often undertaken by DIY enthusiasts in one form or another, the one advertised looks good, but I notice it comes complete with an RDF of the narrow tube type, which I personally don`t like, it`s a pity they do not sell the bracket on it`s own, then you can mount an RDF of your choice. Another method is to get hold of a 1mw to 5mw green laser, which are quite cheap and make a mounting for it on the bins, once you have centred it to the FOV you will know precisely where you are in the night sky, a good star map and you should be able to hop about

John.

Nice idea

[nightvision]

Navigating with bins can be difficult, familiar patterns disappear and all the stars look similar.. A simple approach that works for me is to tripod mount (or dob mount) my green laser (with a a tie-wrap sliding collar to keep it switched on). I swing this on to a familiar region or specific constellation star before using the bins. The tripod is set to its lowest next to me while I lie on a comfortable sun-lounger. The beam is also easy to move on to the target while holding the bins with one hand (especially when the sun-lounger is reclined). I have tried several bins (10x50, 9x63, 20x100) on a tripods and they were all a pain in the neck for the high stuff, sun-lounger and smaller bins work great.

I dismantled the 20x100 bins and created a 13x100 wide-field scope using a 2" right angle dielectric and a 2" 32mm eyepiece, excellent when tripod mounted, the other half is a guide scope!

[Alastair Rae]

Being a bit impetuous and because I'm off on my hols soon, I went ahead and bought that RDF mount. I was a little worried that my 15x70s would be either too big or too heavy but the bracket is rock solid. The finder is much the same noddy plastic type as on my frac which I find perfectly usable. Pic attached.