Use of virtual reality products with binoculars

[richard5700]

Hi. What I would really enjoy is to be able to view the night sky with a system consisting of a virtual reality headset product hooked up to a pair of binoculars that are remotely controlled.

I've not looked into this, but is that a prospect in today's world?  Thanks.

[Peter Drew]

I don't know anything about VR headsets but I can't believe that there isn't the technology available to do what you ask. Bet it would be expensive though!.   

[saac]

Oculus Rift or the play station VR headset may be worth looking at. Not sure why you would want the headset hooked up to binoculars though if you are going for VR, surely just the VR driven by a planetarium app would suffice. Or are you thinking that the image collected by the binos would be displayed live on the VR headset with the ability to control the direction of the binos using head movement?

JIm

[richard5700]

HI. It's not VR that I'm interested in. It's the reality of the image from binoculars pointed to the sky.  But, I don't want to look at a screen. I want to put a head-set on and see what the binoculars are seeing. But, I can be inside the house, nice and warm. :-)

[JonC]

I cant see why not. I have flown quadcopters where you steer the camera using goggles and head movements. Issue would be how quick the count can move, lag can make the user feel motion sickness.

[Stub Mandrel]

There's no real depth to a binocular view of the heavens, as everything is so far away the parallax is less than negligible. The benefits of binocular viewing are (a) it feels more natural and (b) the eyes make up for each other's imperfections giving a better view if all the light went into one eye.

So you don't need to link up a binocular system with all the complexity that would entail, just duplicate a telescope image so that it appears to be at infinity in the viewer.

[Geoff Lister]

Would a tablet, running SkyPortal or Sky Safari, hanging from the peak of a baseball cap, work for you?

Geoff