Binoviewing 6mm BGO's

[Timebandit]

As i have had a bit of time this afternoon and the Herefordshire location has been very mild and sunny this afternoon?. I am sure the chaps and ladies going to the SGL party will be happy to hear of the present good weather conditions. 

Therefore as the conditions have been pleasant I thought I would try my newly acquired 6mm Baader Genuine Ortho. As the pairing looked reasonably good from first impressions on receiving the BGO 6mm in the post I was keeping my fingers crossed, but as they say the proof of the pudding is in the eating. So the 120 Ed apo equinox was set up onto the AZ4 mount (my simple but in my opinion a great effective set up). And the TS Binoviewers where taken out of the case and placed into the 1.25 adapter in the scope. It was now time to to get the 6mm BGO out and insert them into the 1.25 eyepiece holders in the TS . As some may have noticed in binoviewing that just because an eyepiece is supposed to fit into a 1.25 the eyepieces do seem to vary slightly. The BGO 6mm where no different and a little on the tight side , but they did slip in so all was well.. I had decided to go for a straight through set up as a first trial as nice and simple and relatively quick to set up. So eyepieces in the scope was all ready to test the new eyepieces out.

I put my eyes against the Binoviewers 6mm BGO and started to adjust the spacing of the Binoviewers to suit my eye's and to get the two Binos to join up.The target I had decided on was a distant tree across a neighbouring field, and as the sun was shinning then the trees were light up with sunlight to which does help test the clarity and sharpness of an eyepiece in daylight conditions IMO. The scope was positioned to line up with the distant tree and it was time to see if the scope will focus? It's always a bit of a concern when trying out a new eyepiece or set up as focus may not be achieved and this can result in expensive remedial thinking. So the focus lock was eased off and the focuser turned.   The view through the eyepieces were a blurry mix of white and light green initially. Slowly with more out focus then the image did start to get clearer until a reasonable sharpness of the tree leaf and branches were apparent. Now I looked through each eyepiece in turn and adjusted these individually to sharpen up the image as much as possible. Both eyepieces where adjusted to sharp individual image. And then the Binoviewers where ready to see the full effect of the BGO. And the results were very very good indeed. The images that I was receiving were very sharp and well defined, showing very tight bark details on the tree and very small patches on mould growth on the tree also. The leaf vains were also very sharp and the colour to my eyes very life like. Just a very pleasing and sharp all round high magnification image. I must say the BGO do not seem to disappoint and I was a bit concerned initially when I decided to purchase the 6mm if this would be pushing the set up high magnification a bit to far. But the 6mm BGO in daylight conditions had performed very well indeed and had great sharpness and colour and there was also plenty of focus travel left on the scope also which should mean that there should no issue in reaching focus on night time targets (weather and atmospheric conditions allowing). Therefore I am really looking forward to trying this high power set up on the moon initially and then hopefully a bit of planetary also. So all in all my first impressions with my quick test set up was  the 6mm BGO were a great buy for the Binoviewers      

 

 

 

The Binoviewers set up. Binoviewing in my opinion if a different type of views, some people compare it to a 3D type of effect. Well worth a bit of extra time and trouble to set up. Especially when you have a nice pair of  6mm Baader Genuine Ortho☺

[Ruud]

Thanks for the report. I hope the BGOs will lead you to many new discoveries. They look great with the binoviewer and your beautifully shiny telescope.

Clear skies!

[John]

Interesting and useful report

Those look just like BV's that I have bought. Do you use them straight through when astro observing ?

[Timebandit]

19 hours ago, John said:

Interesting and useful report

Those look just like BV's that I have bought. Do you use them straight through when astro observing ?

 

Hi John. Sometimes straight through and sometimes I use the diagonal. It depends a lot on the object I am going to try and view , if it's a planet or lunar fairly low down in the sky then a bit of straight through i find is great. If it's higher up in the sky , then the diagonal is used to make a bit more comfortable. Going straight through is also quicker to set up and sometimes with clouds 30 Min away or so then straight through is the quickest way to set up for a bit of binoviewing. 

The secret is out John , I was not sure which Binoviewers you opted for but is sounds like you have gone for the TS ones ,which I find very good for the cash. Stu and Derek  (DRT) had these before me and they did recommend them ,and I am happy they are in the eyepiece case, and work very well with the few plossl and Orthos  ?

[spaceboy]

I think the trick to bino viewers are to use 1.25" diagonals as I find even using a single eyepiece larger 2" diagonals us up valuable inward focus

[John]

42 minutes ago, spaceboy said:

I think the trick to bino viewers are to use 1.25" diagonals as I find even using a single eyepiece larger 2" diagonals us up valuable inward focus

I'm going to use a Baader T2 prism diagonal with my BV's. It has a slightly shorter light path than most 1.25" mirror diagonals I believe.

[avtaram]

32 minutes ago, John said:

I'm going to use a Baader T2 prism diagonal with my BV's. It has a slightly shorter light path than most 1.25" mirror diagonals I believe.

When using WO binoviewers with my 120ed and ZS71ed I found that I had to use a 1.25" diagonal  with the supplied 1.6x barlow screwed into the nose piece of the diagonal to achieve focus, I could not reach focus when the barlow was screwed into the nose piece of the binoviewer.

Recently I acquired a 1.25" erecting prism diagonal and found that I could achieve focus with both the refractors without having to use the 1.6x barlow.

Avtar