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Binoviewer Performance Questions


John

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The BV's arrived this morning :hello2:

Just waiting for the eyepieces now. If they grab me then I'll add a pair of something with a shorter focal length for sure.

My main scopes for this activity will be the Tak 100 and the Lzos 130. The latter is designed to be bino friendly. There is a 6" version on UK Astro Buy & Sell but I'm trying to ignore it :rolleyes2:

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10 minutes ago, John said:

My main scopes for this activity will be the Tak 100 and the Lzos 130. The latter is designed to be bino friendly. There is a 6" version on UK Astro Buy & Sell but I'm trying to ignore it :rolleyes2:

From time to time, we can read comments to ocular-holic about a fancy EP: " resistance is futile", how does work on a refractor fan?:grin:

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2 hours ago, John said:

The BV's arrived this morning :hello2:

Just waiting for the eyepieces now. If they grab me then I'll add a pair of something with a shorter focal length for sure.

My main scopes for this activity will be the Tak 100 and the Lzos 130. The latter is designed to be bino friendly. There is a 6" version on UK Astro Buy & Sell but I'm trying to ignore it :rolleyes2:

Congrats on the BV's John but commiserations to the wife as they are going to grab you by your wallet. But then xmas is only around the corner :D:D 

Easy to resist John, just think of the agro and expense that will come with mounting it.

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3 hours ago, John said:

The BV's arrived this morning :hello2:

Just waiting for the eyepieces now. If they grab me then I'll add a pair of something with a shorter focal length for sure.

My main scopes for this activity will be the Tak 100 and the Lzos 130. The latter is designed to be bino friendly. There is a 6" version on UK Astro Buy & Sell but I'm trying to ignore it :rolleyes2:

 

Binoviewers arrived, that was quick work John☺. I am expecting a little delivery also. I have been trying to match up my existing BGO to form another set for the Binoviewers . Have managed eventually to find and acquire, so hopefully all can be revealed later.

Sounds like presents all round today, and it's not even Christmas?

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  • 4 weeks later...

Fantastic thread folks. I've recently purchased a cheap wee 2nd hand pair of WO bv's. I attended Abernethy star party in October but could not achieve focus in either my 12" dob or SW Equinox 80ed. Due to work/weather constraints I have not been able to justify giving over limited observing time to troubleshooting the problem. Happy to say after reading through this thread I feel inspired to get it sorted. I wouldn't dream of chopping the tube and I am hoping to find quick, low cost fixes to the frac issue. As mentioned earlier I would be viewing solar system as an add on to cyclops rather than using BV's all the time. I liked the idea given previously of using them straight through the frac to at least get an idea if I like it or not. I shall report back with my results as soon as the next clear night comes along

Regards

Andy

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Hope you enjoy using them Andy :icon_biggrin:

I tried mine during 3 sessions but I just could not get on with them at all :embarrassed:

Nothing wrong with the BV's and the eyepieces seemed a good match but it's just me I'm afraid :undecided:

This is the 2nd time I've tried a pair of BV's without success so I'm having to conclude that they are just not for me.

They will be on their way to a new owner this week.

 

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27 minutes ago, YKSE said:

I'm sorry to hear that, John.

Was it difficulty in merging the images? if I may ask?

I did find it difficult to merge the images and also just generally found that I was not enjoying viewing through the scope when using the binoviewer - it seemed awkward and hard work. I did try different targets during the sessions that I had with the BV's but by the end of each session I'd got fed up and put a single eyepiece back into the diagonal ans started to enjoy myself again.

Nothing against binoviewing though. I don't get on that well with astro binoculars either. The lightweight birding types are fine though.

 

 

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4 minutes ago, John said:

I did find it difficult to merge the images and also just generally found that I was not enjoying viewing through the scope when using the binoviewer - it seemed awkward and hard work. I did try different targets during the sessions that I had with the BV's but by the end of each session I'd got fed up and put a single eyepiece back into the diagonal ans started to enjoy myself again.

Nothing against binoviewing though. I don't get on that well with astro binoculars either. The lightweight birding types are fine though.

 

 

I suspect we are similar in that respect John. The main area where binoviewing works for me is solar, white light currently but soon to be Ha too. Lunar works well, but for pretty much everything else I see more detail using a single eyepiece and am more relaxed.

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I'm with Stu.

I find it too much of a faff with anything else other than big globes in the sky. I do really like the relaxation of two eye viewing when looking at the moon though. I find Ha good too and white light to some extent but I have managed about half an hour total on both since getting BVs the weather has been so pants.

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Seems to me the BV viewing is a highly personal experience, one man's trash is another man's treasure kind-of-thing.

I would love to try out a pair, being primarily a lunar/planetary observer, but also being blind in one eye they'd be less than useless!  

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Yes, it's a little faff to use binoviewer, especially with GPC and T2 connection. I've mostly binoviewed the Moon, planets and white light in backyard. So not very tight time schedule, and the far relaxed viewing lets me to see more than cyclops. As to connection faff, I find it easier to connect binoviewer to diagonal (if via T2) first, then insert the binoviewer + diagonal assembly into the diagonal.

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I had a pretty similar experience when bino-viewing for the first time, so your not the only one who can't get on with them John. Despite enjoying the views it all seemed so much hard work to do on a regular basis. I'm sure in an obsy setting where you have everything lined up on the side and to hand with your scopes all modified to reach focus then it would be a nice dimension to the viewing experience but for dashing out between clouds and fumbling around in the dark swapping out two eyepieces at a time and trying to reach focus in different scopes put me right off the idea. Still I can't help but think about how much I enjoyed the comfort they offered at higher magnifications.

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1 hour ago, spaceboy said:

I had a pretty similar experience when bino-viewing for the first time, so your not the only one who can't get on with them John. Despite enjoying the views it all seemed so much hard work to do on a regular basis. I'm sure in an obsy setting where you have everything lined up on the side and to hand with your scopes all modified to reach focus then it would be a nice dimension to the viewing experience but for dashing out between clouds and fumbling around in the dark swapping out two eyepieces at a time and trying to reach focus in different scopes put me right off the idea. Still I can't help but think about how much I enjoyed the comfort they offered at higher magnifications.

For Solar white light I use a pair of 25mm Zeiss Orthos and an AP Barcon element connected with T2 quick changers. The beauty of this is that I can leave the eyepieces in place and just add extension tubes to increase the power (again using quick changers). The whole thing looks quite ungainly but I've never had any problems with balance and the views are amazing.

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I didn't have a problem with the setup part. It was the looking through it part that I could not get comfortable with.

I've no doubt that BV'ing provides great results for many though - the regular reports on forums like this prove that.

 

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I've always found binoviewing to be hard work about half the time, the other half everything goes relatively OK. I enjoyed looking at M42 with bino's. For me they are predominantly for lunar/planetary though. 

It can get to a stage where you seem to be shagging about with the equipment rather than actual observing 'eyeballs to the eyepieces' so to speak.  Generally I think bino's are a good idea. Unfortunately not all ideas are eminently practical. lol

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I think the key to BVs (based on my limited experience so far) is to use the lowest factor glasspath corrector you can get focus with (this will not be the same for all observing - the Ha and white light focus points are exceptionally different for my set ups) and to buy pairs of eyepieces which match your observing preferences - keeping these to the minimum you can get away with - perhaps 2-3 pairs.

I have not experimented with Stu's method of changing the extension between the BV and the GPC but this is something I'll be doing once I have a quick change system for sure.

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You need to also keep something in mind about binoviewing.

Merging problems mostly come from miscollimated binoviewers - a more frequent occurrence than one might expect - and the problem gets exacerbated the more you magnify.

Mine are the Teleskop branded ones. I received them very slightly miscollimated and would use them at about 100x - 120x for about 15 to 20 minutes. Then I would get headaches.

Off they went to Denis Levatik for supercharging and after a little issue (oops!) of them arriving grossly miscollimated (thank you postal services!), Denis recollimated them and glued the prism screws in place.

Now I binoview at about 160x - 170x the moon with my 90mm refractor with no issues, no fatigue, no merging issues. Sheer pleasure. 

I also don't swap eyepieces. I have a 1.6x  and 1.9x OCAs and a 2.25x Baader barlow and I play with them to get the magnification as I like. Faffing around with eyepieces and a binoviewer in the dark is no fun. 

Stu's method works and I use it myself extensively when I want to have two magnifications available. I keep an extension between my barlow and the body of the binoviewer for high magnification. If the seeing is bad, I remove the extension and drop the magnification to something more "reasonable"...

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I didn't get headaches and I could get a single merged image but it was just harder work than I want my observing to be.

My trial involved a range of magnifications and I was able to split Iota Cassiopeiae, Pi Aquillae and Theta Aurigae using the BV's in my Tak 100 so I think the collimation was OK.

I'm really pleased that others love binoviewing but it's just not for me.

 

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4 minutes ago, John said:

I didn't get headaches and I could get a single merged image but it was just harder work than I want my observing to be.

My trial involved a range of magnifications and I was able to split Iota Cassiopeiae, Pi Aquillae and Theta Aurigae using the BV's in my Tak 100 so I think the collimation was OK.

I'm really pleased that others love binoviewing but it's just not for me.

 

I found splitting tight doubles in mis-collimated binoviewers very easy, but I guess I'm missing the point ;);) 

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1 hour ago, Stu said:

I found splitting tight doubles in mis-collimated binoviewers very easy, but I guess I'm missing the point ;);) 

Maybe it wasn't a good test but it was all I could think of !

Anyway, this is the 2nd time I've given them a try and I'm glad I did :icon_biggrin:

 

 

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