Strathspey 15x70 first light

[lensman57]

Hi,

Further to my previous post, tonight I had a brief chance to direct them towards some celestial objects. First let me say that i had already ordered a mounting arm ( the usual fair ) from Strathspey that arrived with the Binos. I mounted the Bino on to my Manfroto 410 pan and tilt head, this head is a relic of the time that I used to do a lot of close up, macro, still life photography and is extremley well made with micrometer control on all three axis of movement, the whole thing was then mounted on a Gitzo tripod that used to support my 5X4 field cameras. Total overkill as the head only costs well over twice as much as the Bino and don't ask about the Gitzo please, the set up was rock solid and the weak point if any was the Bino mount.

The view of the moon was breathtaking, I had forgotten how beautiful this close neighbour of ours in the sky is. A very small amount of colour fringing was evident but not distracting, the lenses are really sharp and the coating was working, the view was very contrasty with well defined shadows of the craters and the grey of the seas contrasting against each other, so far so good.

I then found a break in the clouds and pointed the Binos towards M42, beautiful, even though there was a lot of moisture in the air the stars were pin sharp ( given the seeing was not good ) and the nebulasity showed very well indeed ( a very light blue grey tinge ) amongst the myriad of blue stars , it was a sight to behold. Then I pointed almost overhead towards Jupiter and the disc could just hint the at two brownish cloud bands, the four moons were all on one side and the view was a bit lobsided but nice, big Jup hardly ever dissapoints and while I was in the area I quickly pointed to M45, what a sight, there are some objects in the sky that a telescope even with low power doesn't do justice to.

As usual just as I was getting warmed up and calling my wife out to share the experience the ever present clouds took over. For the few minutes that I managed to glimpse at the sky I really had a good time. On this occassion the Binos really delivered and my initial fears proved not to be justified. Lets hope that I get a chance to do some comet hunting in due course and do these fine instrument justice.

Many thanks for listening,

Regards,

A.G

[tenbyfifty]

Hi,

Further to my previous post, tonight I had a brief chance to direct them towards some celestial objects. First let me say that i had already ordered a mounting arm ( the usual fair ) from Strathspey that arrived with the Binos. I mounted the Bino on to my Manfroto 410 pan and tilt head, this head is a relic of the time that I used to do a lot of close up, macro, still life photography and is extremley well made with micrometer control on all three axis of movement, the whole thing was then mounted on a Gitzo tripod that used to support my 5X4 field cameras. Total overkill as the head only costs well over twice as much as the Bino and don't ask about the Gitzo please, the set up was rock solid and the weak point if any was the Bino mount.

The view of the moon was breathtaking, I had forgotten how beautiful this close neighbour of ours in the sky is. A very small amount of colour fringing was evident but not distracting, the lenses are really sharp and the coating was working, the view was very contrasty with well defined shadows of the craters and the grey of the seas contrasting against each other, so far so good.

I then found a break in the clouds and pointed the Binos towards M42, beautiful, even though there was a lot of moisture in the air the stars were pin sharp ( given the seeing was not good ) and the nebulasity showed very well indeed ( a very light blue grey tinge ) amongst the myriad of blue stars , it was a sight to behold. Then I pointed almost overhead towards Jupiter and the disc could just hint the at two brownish cloud bands, the four moons were all on one side and the view was a bit lobsided but nice, big Jup hardly ever dissapoints and while I was in the area I quickly pointed to M45, what a sight, there are some objects in the sky that a telescope even with low power doesn't do justice to.

As usual just as I was getting warmed up and calling my wife out to share the experience the ever present clouds took over. For the few minutes that I managed to glimpse at the sky I really had a good time. On this occassion the Binos really delivered and my initial fears proved not to be justified. Lets hope that I get a chance to do some comet hunting in due course and do these fine instrument justice.

Many thanks for listening,

Regards,

A.G

thanks for this post:

i'm trying to decide on a pair of big bins and all real life reports are very useful.

[Space Dragon]

Next time the weather allows have a look for the Beehive Cluster and Double Cluster, both well positioned just now. Orions Belt is great in 15x70s..... in fact most of the sky is great in 15x70s.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Glad you are enjoying the new bins. Regarding the mount: there is no such thing as over-mounting a scope (or indeed bins).

[BinocularSky]

As Michael implies, nobody ever complains that his/her mount is too stable. The Strath is usually a pretty good incarnation of the BA1 15x70 -- noticeably better than the Celestron Skymaster!