Binoviewing not always best

[Highburymark]

Since getting my 60mm Lunt last year I've increasingly used a binoviewer for solar ha. Like others I find they provide more relaxed observing, better detail, and no floaters. I use a WO bino with pairs of TV plossls and Fujiyama orthos. But today - in far from perfect conditions (seeing wasn't great, lots of cloud, but still enough opportunities to enjoy the main prom at 40-50x), I got significantly better prom views through a single Pentax XF zoom. Of course a single eyepiece will always deliver more brightness, but today the magnificent XF also squeezed out complex detail within the prom which just wasn't possible with the binoviewer. However, the WO/plossl pairs still had the edge on surface detail.

Do other binoviewer users on the forum prefer single eyepieces for proms?

[Stu]

I was binoviewing in both White Light and Ha today and to be honest the seeing was so poor it was pretty frustrating.

White light showed very little, granulation every now and then and at one stage a small active area with a few tiny spots and a brighter area.

In Ha, I’m always at higher powers so the seeing need to be good. The prom looked ok, but soft, as did the surface detail. The trouble is, at lower power with a single eyepiece the view is brighter but with more hot spotting and reflections, it’s not so pleasant to view like that so in summary I think for me, with the PST mod, it is best to binoview and wait for the good seeing.

[GavStar]

That’s interesting Mark. I haven’t done much solar over the past six months. However I remember getting some wonderful views with my Pentax 20xw in mono mode and my 60mm Lunt last August on some large proms. I’m a binoviewer fan for solar, lunar and planetary viewing but the pentax Lunt 60 combo did impress me a lot.

I will try to do a comparison against the 24mm panoptics in binoviewing mode this summer.

[laudropb]

Very interesting post Mark. I have not tried bino viewing yet, but I have just purchased the Pentax zoom. Not had a chance to try it yet, but your post certainly raises my hopes.

[Merlin66]

Of all the eyepieces I've bought over the years, the Pentax Zoom has been by far the best buy ever.

For solar observing with the SM60 or the PST Mod I find it is superb.

Majic does happen.

[Highburymark]

2 hours ago, laudropb said:

Very interesting post Mark. I have not tried bino viewing yet, but I have just purchased the Pentax zoom. Not had a chance to try it yet, but your post certainly raises my hopes.

John - my Pentax zoom is the cheap(er) one, the XF, but am sure your (more expensive) Pentax zoom will perform very well too. 

[Highburymark]

4 hours ago, GavStar said:

That’s interesting Mark. I haven’t done much solar over the past six months. However I remember getting some wonderful views with my Pentax 20xw in mono mode and my 60mm Lunt last August on some large proms. I’m a binoviewer fan for solar, lunar and planetary viewing but the pentax Lunt 60 combo did impress me a lot.

I will try to do a comparison against the 24mm panoptics in binoviewing mode this summer.

Am sure the Panoptics with your Baader Mark V binoviewer will be superb Gavin. I'm still waiting to see what the new Maxbright binoviewer will be like.....

[Peter Drew]

I used a zoom exclusively for Ha solar observation but once I had a configuration that allowed the use of a binoviewer it satisfied my holy grail. I'm not looking back!