Floaters, my imagination?

[Stu]

On 26 February 2016 at 12:57, bish said:

Mine first appeared in my late 30's, I'm now 45 and they generally don't bother me too much. Snow, painting white walls and viewing the moon are worst. Using my 127nm mak at high power on Jupiter seemed a lot worse than my dob. Seems that has to do with my head position,  although I am going to have an eye check up

That will likely be the smaller exit pupil in the Mak making them more visible.

I think I might have to try binoviewers for a fourth time to see if I can crack them this time!!

[Stu]

8 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

I'd just like to say I'm not in my 60's yet and won't be for a few years. That's it!

Mike

PS. I can't help feeling that some people might be giving up up bino viewers a bit too easily. It's true they may take a little adjustment to match the eyes of the person using them, which would include adjusting the occular separation, rotating the eyepiece holders on both sides to bring the images together and then focusing each eye separately. They are superb but not group observing friendly, as each BV needs to be tuned to the individual. They also seem to improve the seeing by halving the turbulence. I have no idea why!  But for the moon and planets two eyes are definitely better than one. 

Mike, I promise you I've tried! I've had a pair of William optics, some Baader Maxbrights and finally some Denks but I just don't seem to get on with them. I will try once more! Which do you have?

[Davey-T]

I've tried, but not very hard, bought a cheap pair of Revelation bino' viewers, only had the 20mm eyepieces they came with but couldn't get on with them.
Planned on using them for Solar / Lunar but gave up after a couple of tries.
Would have bought another TV Plossl to make a pair if they worked, may even have considered buying a decent pair.

Dave

[mikeDnight]

44 minutes ago, Stu said:

Mike, I promise you I've tried! I've had a pair of William optics, some Baader Maxbrights and finally some Denks but I just don't seem to get on with them. I will try once more! Which do you have?

Hi Stu.

Mine are the cheapest on the market I think! I use a revelation binoviewer. I would like a Televue or Denk pair, or may be Zeiss, but I'm too tight to spend that kind of money without first seeing if they worked for me. I've had them now for about three years and love them. I also have a set of Pentax XW's which I think are one of the purest 70° eyepieces on the market and they give terrific planetary views, but I've found I'm rarely using them now, as I'm able to detect greater detail on the planets using my cheap binoviewer and a couple of cheap 16.8mm ortho's I borrowed from paulastro 3yrs ago ( the bino is fitted with a X2 Barlow screwed to its nose). The trouble is that the beggar came to observe with me last week, and after using my bino on his 4" ED, he now wants his ortho's back as they are so good. The cheek of it!

Because I'm rarely using my XW's I've decided to sell the three high power planetary ones, my 3.5, 5 & 7mm, so I've probably done myself no favours by telling folk my thoughts on bino viewers. I'm not bothered if they don't sell though, as they are so transparent they are a joy to use on DSOs and stellar, as well as for group viewing. Only a few days ago I used the 5mm to view the trapezium and the E & F stars were easily seen in the 4". It was a steady night though! 

Mike 

 

[Stu]

2 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

Hi Stu.

Mine are the cheapest on the market I think! I use a revelation binoviewer. I would like a Televue or Denk pair, or may be Zeiss, but I'm too tight to spend that kind of money without first seeing if they worked for me. I've had them now for about three years and love them. I also have a set of Pentax XW's which I think are one of the purest 70° eyepieces on the market and they give terrific planetary views, but I've found I'm rarely using them now, as I'm able to detect greater detail on the planets using my cheap binoviewer and a couple of cheap 16.8mm ortho's I borrowed from paulastro 3yrs ago ( the bino is fitted with a X2 Barlow screwed to its nose). The trouble is that the beggar came to observe with me last week, and after using my bino on his 4" ED, he now wants his ortho's back as they are so good. The cheek of it!

Because I'm rarely using my XW's I've decided to sell the three high power planetary ones, my 3.5, 5 & 7mm, so I've probably done myself no favours by telling folk my thoughts on bino viewers. I'm not bothered if they don't sell though, as they are so transparent they are a joy to use on DSOs and stellar, as well as for group viewing. Only a few days ago I used the 5mm to view the trapezium and the E & F stars were easily seen in the 4". It was a steady night though! 

Mike 

 

Right then Mike! I've just ordered a pair of TS binoviewers with 23mm prisms. Doesn't seem to be much stock of anything around but these seem ok. I've got a pair of 25mm Zeiss Orthoscopic and enough choices of high end barrows to keep me going, so I will see what happens!!

[Stub Mandrel]

On 25/02/2016 at 11:47, PeterCPC said:

I get these as I have had the eye issues referred to by Oddsocks. I have been told that you can sometimes improve the floaters by revolving your eye(s) round and round in one direction for a few seconds. This moves the floaters out of your direct line of site.

Peter

I've had them as long as I can remember. Mine are the leftovers of the blood vessels that built the eye, apparently.

Rolling my eyes works.

[mikeDnight]

3 hours ago, Stu said:

Right then Mike! I've just ordered a pair of TS binoviewers with 23mm prisms. Doesn't seem to be much stock of anything around but these seem ok. I've got a pair of 25mm Zeiss Orthoscopic and enough choices of high end barrows to keep me going, so I will see what happens!!

I hope they work for you Stu. I've found the hardest part is getting the images to blend together, but once they're lined up and each eyepiece is individually focused I'm hoping you'll grow to really like them. 25mm orthos should give some great views of the moon once the bino's been barlowed. You might need to get something in the 16 to 18mm ortho range to get the image scale for Jupiter though.

Mike

 

[Stu]

2 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

I hope they work for you Stu. I've found the hardest part is getting the images to blend together, but once they're lined up and each eyepiece is individually focused I'm hoping you'll grow to really like them. 25mm orthos should give some great views of the moon once the bino's been barlowed. You might need to get something in the 16 to 18mm ortho range to get the image scale for Jupiter though.

Mike

 

Thanks Mike, I'll report back.

I have some decent barrows which I should be able to increase the multiplication factor with using spacers so will see how I go. If I really can sort my floaters out then it would really help my planetary observing out. We'll see. They weren't overly expensive so not the end of the world if it doesn't work out........again!

[Guest HowieG]

If you notice an increase in floaters, get your eyes checked.  I am almost 62.  Over the past year, I have had a PVD (posterior vitreous detachment) in each eye.  This occurs in people over 50  when the vitreous gel in the eye shrinks and detaches from the retina.  It can result in a retinal tear, which is serious stuff.  What I noticed was my normally 20/15 vision became highly variable and the amount of trash floating in my eyes increased dramatically.  This trash is supposed to mostly settle out in few months.  That's a positive.  A negative is that weird things can happen.  The PVD in my left eye happened last summer and left a blob of junk/jelly/snot hanging right in the center of my vision.  Consequently, my left eye vision went from 20/really good to 20/oh my god.  It's like looking through an eyepiece with Vaseline smeared on it.  Not fun.  Luckily, my right is my dominant eye and I still see pretty good......when I wait for the Rubbish to wander away!

[Expat_tony]

On 25/02/2016 at 16:19, simmo39 said:

If you get lots of floaters I would go straight to the docs. I have just had 3 operations on my left eye following floaters. Turned out that I had another retina detachment which is not healing well. Had my left eye go 3 years ago but that healed well. Not trying to frighten anyone just dont want anyone to go through what i have, Also giving the specialist a dam good listening to about not going early enough was a wake up call.

I agree totally, don't take this lightly. If you've seen repeated perfectly curved lightning flashes around the very periphery of your closed eye it'll be one of two things, retinal detachment (RD), which needs an operation PDQ if you're to avoid permanently impaired vision, or so-called posterior vitreous detachment (PVD), which is less serious but needs watching (by a ophthalmologist), I had 2 visits in 3 months, and he wants to see me 6 months later just to make sure. There's a strong correlation between PVD and later RD, surprise surprise.

The unshaped flashes you may see when you sneeze or cough at night are not the same thing, it's your eyeball flexing under pressure. The "new moon" shaped flashes of the real thing are unmistakeable. Go to the doc rapidly! Your hobby depends on your eyesight.