My eyes playing tricks....

[Rustysplit]

Over the last few times out with the scope, I have been having a niggling doubt about my mirror. It has seemed to me that no matter how well collimated, I could not get brighter stars to focus to a nice "point". I really noticed it more whilst looking at Jupiter, the moons always seemed to appear as slightly fuzzy, not discs.  I even got to the point of taking the mirror out to test it again. For various reasons, I wasted a day fiddling about and got nowhere. So mirror back in and outside again last night, I found the cause of my fuzzy stars.....my eye!!!!!  I am right eye dominant, and usually observe with my right eye, as it is so much more comfortable. I can leave my left eye open, and my brain ignores what it is seeing, letting me get on with studying the target. Last night I tried my left eye, and suddenly the stars are so much sharper and the Galilean moons are crisp discs. All this time I had assumed that my dominant eye would be best for clarity.

The down side is that my brain does not ignore what my right eye sees so well, so I have to cover my right eye up. Simply shutting it makes the left eye view worse. I found that Nick's (cotterless) tip of pulling the rim of your woolly hat down over your other eye works a trick. So it is eye/brain retraining time for me. I do have some glasses, but never use them normally. In everyday use they just get in the way and make no real difference. The optician did say the need for them was very borderline.

And all this time I had been questioning my mirror/mirrors, turns out it is me that is substandard

[ronl]

I use one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Aculife%20Protective%20Concave%20Eyepatch%20with%20Foam%20Padding 

makes your eyes relax, and gives you better observing, really comfy too. 

[Bart]

I use one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Aculife%20Protective%20Concave%20Eyepatch%20with%20Foam%20Padding

makes your eyes relax, and gives you better observing, really comfy too.

Hey, Ron, where does the EP go????:)

No, I've recently decided that I must try to keep both eyes open but unlike Russ, I can't ignore stray light into the non observing eye. I threw together a shield for the other eye and found it very relaxing. After some thought I thought I had a good idea. I have ordered some swimming goggles that have two separate eye pieces with nice rubbery seals, I'm gonna take one off and Bobs your uncle, a great tool for two eyed observing! TaDah!!

Barry

[Mike73]

Funny you should start a thread like this Alan because I was going to start something similar...

I use binoviewers in my Mak and I really enjoy keeping both eyes open to observe but no matter what I try and can't get my left eye into sharp focus like my right eye. I've always known that I'm right eye dominant because I have a annual medical for work but my left eye is really lagging so I'm getting my eyes tested next week, will probably sell my binoviewers and go back to mono viewing.

[Rustysplit]

Thanks for the link Ron. Might be time for the inner Pirate Steve to come out, Grrrrrr!!

Your symptoms are more what I expected Mike, right eye dominant, left eye less sharp. I am hoping with time I can get used to full time left eye viewing as it is that much sharper. It was the obvious daytime dominance of my right eye that lead me to the opticians. Tbh, they said it was quite normal and not much to be done. My overall sight was actually quite good. The glasses I have do very little except feel annoying.

[Astro Imp]

I've been using a patch for some time, when I first started using it I found I still squinted my eye shut as I had been doing this since I started observing. It took a real effort to keep both eyes open but once I did it was much more comfy. 

As a side note I always use my right eye for observing and did try on a couple of occasions to use the left and it just felt weird.