Binotron first light

[jetstream]

After a short wait, the Binotron 27's arrived, only a couple of weeks actually. The build quality of these binoviewers is excellent and if my first light is any indication the optics are also top notch...

My first attempt at merging the 25mm plossls did not work, but within a minute or so of trying a strange thing happened... the images came together! and now stay together. I did the blink test and there is no hesitating with the merge, the binos are spot on.

Conditions are hazy with the odd clearing sucker hole passing through. Jupiter gave a nice view @ 1.3x and 2.3x, better than my Leica zoom gave tonight cyclops. This is a really good sign.The binos add no scatter and the both eyes view was better than in single mode. Seeing went from extremely poor to average, with high humidity. Polaris was split at 62x with ease.

One thing kind of shocked me- the deep sky views seemed extremely good for the conditions... the Leo triplet was bright, really contrasted out- and under these sketchy conditions. M51 popped its spirals out too...the faintish NGC 3686,3681 and 3684 were easily seen as were many others. M37 gave an amazing view, I'd say the best yet, the binos will excel at these clusters, I just know it lol! bring on M13!

So my question is- can bino viewing add "magnitude gain" when viewing deep sky? From one first light it seems as if this may be the case. The 10" likes the binos, now to try the 15" once it dries up.

 

[cotterless45]

Reckon as you're using both eyes , it should do !

clear skies !

Nick.

[Pig]

Great first light Gerry .... I have never heard of the blink test before, I think you made it up because you like fluttering your eyelashes

[Knighty2112]

As your brain is combining two images from your eyes together, it will appear brighter and clearer than just using one image from just a single eye. A little bit like when you image an object, the more images you get to merge into a single image of it the better it will look. A binoviewer is on my list of 'to get' items for my scope too. Thanks for your report.  

[YKSE]

Great first light

It took me longer time(a few sessions) to get proper merge. The lesser scatter in binoviewer is surely very noticeable compare to cyclops! The actually light throughput should be less than in cyclops, but the benefit of better brain work is a factor difficult to estimate.

[Stu]

Excellent stuff Gerry, really pleased they are working out for you. I've yet to crack Jupiter with mine but Solar and Lunar views are amazing so far and no problems merging images.

Looking forward to more reports!

On the brightness subject, I guess there may be a perception of more brightness but the total light getting through must be less due to the losses in the binoviewers? My two eyes are very different, one gives more muted but high resolution views, the other gives brighter, more grainy views. Combine the two and you get the resolution and brightness together with far fewer floaters!

[Piero]

Great report Gerry! Very glad for you that your binos work as expected! I would also suspect that you get a gain as to me one gets using binoculars.

[Peter Drew]

I don't think the light loss due to binoviewing is made up again by using both eyes, but if the perception is that it's brighter, I will always go with the perception. 

[Joe12345]

Isn't there some sort of weird thing about increasing brightness? Where a M5 star appears to us as twice as bright as M10, when it's actually 100* brighter? If that was the case, then if you're looking at a M5 star, then each eye will see about M5.6 (each magnitude is 2.6* fainter than the one before, so I would guess that /2 brightness would be an increase of about 0.6, although I'm not too good with logs so I couldn't work it out). If it's true that your brain 'stacks' the images together then you would see M2.8 (half 5.6). Chances are I'm completely crazy and have it all wrong, but it's just a thought!

If not, the perception probably comes from the fact that your eyes agree and therefore one doesn't have to make a compromise with the other and give a 'half and half' image.

[laudropb]

Very nice first light report.

[jetstream]

and now second light the 15" /Binotron 27/25mm TV plossls gave a new meaning to contrast on Jupiter, the whole planet, not just the easier features. I think binoviewing has very high potential....just like my buddy has been telling me for 2 1/2 years now Ok maybe I take a while to think things over

In observed until I got snowed out lol!

[Size9Hex]

Interesting to read, and I hope you continue to get some good experiences with the bino viewers. Looking forwards to hearing more. I can well believe that your brain has a better chance of deducing the truth when both eyes are giving it a consistent message. I'd love to try a bino viewer. The cost of a duplicating a set of eyepieces terrifies me though...

 

[jetstream]

Yes you should try binos Paul, I've heard most of them work very well. The Binotrons have some desirable features and this is why I chose them, easily collimatable is one. Baader replied to my email about their upcoming new bino but no info was available yet, these might be worth investigating.

I love eyepieces...but after viewing through the binos I may slim the collection down, leaving my 30ES,21E intact- what I'm saying is try the binos, save for the binos and hold back EP purchases to fund them My 25mm TV plossls are giving a great performance in the binos and I'm researching bino friendly zooms atm. The Nikon 20-45 is looking good if a reasonably accurate adapter can be found... BTW I use those 2 widefields EP's mentioned and a zoom now, thats pretty much it...

I should have listened to YKSE a long time ago and bought them, but I'm a cautious buyer lol!