Bino viewer eyepiece pairs

[25585]

What eye piece pairs do you use for bino viewing?

I have no viewer at present but ; 5, 8, 13, 17.5, 20, 22, 35, 40 & 8-24mm zoom pairs!

Not sure whether to break any pairs to sell one & forget about bino viewers for scopes, though a pair of 45 or 90 degree prism bins may be the way I go. Researching models currently. 

[Stu]

That’s a lot of eyepieces tied up  with using them! Have you ever used them?

I adopt a different strategy, I use a pair of Zeiss ex microscope eyepieces which have a effective focal length of 25mm. Most of my binoviewing is for solar and lunar so I’m at mid to high powers.

Rather than changing eyepieces, I’ve adopted the slightly strange strategy of using an AP Barcon and extension tubes with T2 Quickchangers to vary the magnification, and it works amazingly well. It is easier in many ways than switching eyepieces.

[Timebandit]

 

A half decent pair of plossl will be good. I use some used Televue plossl pairs.

I also love a good Ortho, and so have been lucky enough to match up some BGO.

I do really like binoviewers, and they are certainly a positive addition to the viewing experience. Far more engaging and relaxing than Cyclops imo , and on certain targets you seem to be able to pick out more detail. 

I use the TS Binoviewers, and for the cost have found them very good. Go for it ?

 

 

 

[25585]

I have used all, but some more than others. The shorter FL ones least. 

35 are great, Baader Eudiascopics. Ditto the 40s TV Plossls. With the C8 they work well & no OPC/ tube hassles, a shorter FL SCT would be better eg a C6, a cheaper alternative to big bins. 

 

[Stu]

4 minutes ago, Timebandit said:

I use the TS Binoviewers, and for the cost have found them very good. Go for it ?

I agree with this, the TS have great features and perform very well, and are excellent value!

[Stu]

3 minutes ago, 25585 said:

I have used all, but some more than others. The shorter FL ones least. 

35 are great, Baader Eudiascopics. Ditto the 40s TV Plossls. With the C8 they work well & no OPC/ tube hassles, a shorter FL SCT would be better eg a C6, a cheaper alternative to big bins. 

 

I do think about getting some of the 35mm Eudiascopics but currently have 30 and 40mm Omni Plossls which give me flexibility for Ha viewing to cope with various seeing. More often than not it has been the 40mm recently sadly.

[25585]

Think I'll go for the TS bino viewers & take it from there. 

If I use them with a Tak and extender (not Barlow) would, that enable focus travel without further attachments?

[Louis D]

I binoview pairs of 32mm GSO Plossls, 26mm Orion Sirius Plossls, 23mm Vite 62 degree aspherics, 15x B&L 31-15-74 microscope wide-fields, and Celestron Regal zooms.  None are over the top fantastic, but they work well enough for me.

[F15Rules]

At the moment I have one "matched pair", which are Parks Gold series 25mm (with no undercuts!), and a non-matched pair of a 10mm GS and a 10mm Baader Eudiascopic. The 25mms give me c x125 in my setup  and I had a nice view of Jupiter, Izar and Cor Caroli lat weekend at that power in the Maxbrights. The10mm pair work fine together but 10mm in my setup effectively works (with a 1.6x Barlow nosepiece) at c 3x native focal length, which means the 10mm are operating at c 3.3mm, far too high for most needs. So I think a 15mm pair to give 5x would be the maximum I would use.

Using a Baader T2 prism with 32mm clear aperture I think I could use a 30mm pair with minimal vignetting. 

Interestingly, I have an old Celestron Omni X2 Barlow which I can detach the nosepiece from..using this nosepiece it seemed that the magnification dropped significantly, although I don't know to what level. The image quality looked very good, no different to the other nosepiece.

It does seem to be the case that high end eyepieces are not essential to getting very good performance in binoviewers..maybe something to do with the use of both eyes helping to compensate versus cyclops viewing?

Dave

[David Levi]

I've just bought a pair of TS-Optics binoviewers. They arrived today together with the clouds. I have no eyepiece pairs for them yet but I intend to buy some cheaper plossl/orthoscopic/60' eyepieces. I'll see how my testing goes. My daylight test has already determined that I need my barlow lens to get focus.

According to what I have read, the longest focal length eyepieces that you can use depends on which binoviewers you buy. The limiting factor being the binoviewer clear aperture. The field stop of the eyepiece you are able to use cannot be too much bigger than this. That means that for 1.25" eyepieces you can rule out using eyepieces with focal lengths greater than 25mm and sometimes greater than 20mm. I hope that I have got this correct, I'm no expert.

[dweller25]

I have matched pairs of...

Celestron 26mm silvertop Plossls (from the 1980’s)

Tal 25mm Plossls

Televue 20mm Plossls

Fujiyama 18mm Orthoscopics

Superview 15mm Super Plossls

Pentax 12.5mm XF

I use them with either x2.6 or x1.25 glass path correctors.

[niallk]

A pair of 15mm TV plossls, giving me approx 200x / 250x in my 10" / 15" for planetary + lunar.  I'm always in cyclops mode for DSOs.

The TV 15mm plossl is a great little EP, and I use it (also with a screw in 1.5x barlow at times) for solar Ha.

[Highburymark]

My binoviewing pairs are Fujiyama orthos 25mm, and TV plossls 20mm, 15mm, 11mm. For solar ha the plossls have the edge, but it's very close. Haven't tried any Vixens for solar, but clearly they are up there with the best.

Putting together a high mag white light set up at the moment - Fujiyama 25mm pair - MkV binoviewer - VIP Barlow and T2 spacers - Lacerta wedge. Suspect the orthos may be best option here. But the TV plossls are exceptional so we will see. For cyclops they are also superb.

Must say the TS binoviewer looks like a really good choice - one of the few Chinese units with decent EP centering - and great value. Might be worth considering a nice Lunt or Lacerta wedge to go with them?

[mikeDnight]

Currently my binoviewer pairs are 18mm Celestron Ultimas,  16.8mm Super Abbe Orthoscopics, 15mm LV's, 12mm LV's and 7.5mm Celestron Ultimas. The binoviewer, a cheap Revelation model, is always used with a 2X Celestron Ultima Barlow, which actually gives 2.5X amplification by itself. Therefore, when used in the binoviewer gives approximately 4X the magnification of the eyepiece and barlow combined.

I have had a number of TV plossl pairs, but the field stop is way too soft for my liking in bino use and made me feel like I had glaucoma. All the above eyepieces have sharp field stops in the binoviewer.

[25585]

1 hour ago, mikeDnight said:

Currently my binoviewer pairs are 18mm Celestron Ultimas,  16.8mm Super Abbe Orthoscopics, 15mm LV's, 12mm LV's and 7.5mm Celestron Ultimas. The binoviewer, a cheap Revelation model, is always used with a 2X Celestron Ultima Barlow, which actually gives 2.5X amplification by itself. Therefore, when used in the binoviewer gives approximately 4X the magnification of the eyepiece and barlow combined.

I have had a number of TV plossl pairs, but the field stop is way too soft for my liking in bino use and made me feel like I had glaucoma. All the above eyepieces have sharp field stops in the binoviewer.

The combined magnification of barlows and bv, makes short FL scopes seem more appropriate. My bv will get used mostly on the Genesis which is 500mm F5. Not noticed softening with the TV 40mm and 32mm Plossls I own, but always put things down to my eyes or glasses.

[paulastro]

The pairs I use are Baader Mk111 zooms, 16.8mm Kson Orthos and a pair made up of a 35mm Celestron Ultima and a 35mm Eudiascopic.  I'm considering looking out for a  Baader Hyperion 24mm to make up another pair with the one I already have.  I use them without a  GPC/barlow on my SW 180mm Mak,  and with a x2 SW barlow element in the nosepiece of my Baader Maxbright  binoviewer when using my Astro-Tech 102ED.

[mikeDnight]

1 hour ago, 25585 said:

The combined magnification of barlows and bv, makes short FL scopes seem more appropriate. My bv will get used mostly on the Genesis which is 500mm F5. Not noticed softening with the TV 40mm and 32mm Plossls I own, but always put things down to my eyes or glasses.

I should have clarified that the softening of the field stop of the TV plossls was only really noticeable while observing the moon. I used 15mm & 11mm pairs in the BV, but individually in mono use the field stop was razor sharp. The on axis image both in mono and in bino use was top class. I've not used the 40mm or 32mm in a binoviewer so couldn't say if they are better for BV use than the shorter focal length plossls.

[zohsix]

I have pairs of 32mm Plossels, TV 24mm Pans, 16 and 12mm Brandons.  My Brandons give the clearest, sharpest views of planets and lunar, and get 90% of my Binoviwer time.  Much prefer looking at solar system objects through the bino's than cyclops.

 

Dan

[Ricochet]

I currently have 25mm Starguiders, 14mm XWs and a 10mmXW/10.5mmXL pair. On the moon this seems fine but now that the planets are around I've noticed that if I put an object at the edge of the field of view horizontally only one eye is actually seeing it. Bringing it into vision for both eyes requires moving my head rather than just my eyes. Does anyone else notice this issue? Does it only affect wide angle eyepieces or does it happen with every FoV? 

Edit: I would estimate that of the 70° field the central 50° is binocular. 

[Louis D]

On 27/05/2018 at 02:39, Ricochet said:

I currently have 25mm Starguiders, 14mm XWs and a 10mmXW/10.5mmXL pair. On the moon this seems fine but now that the planets are around I've noticed that if I put an object at the edge of the field of view horizontally only one eye is actually seeing it. Bringing it into vision for both eyes requires moving my head rather than just my eyes. Does anyone else notice this issue? Does it only affect wide angle eyepieces or does it happen with every FoV? 

Edit: I would estimate that of the 70° field the central 50° is binocular. 

Yes, it's a well know limitation of binoviewing that the moment you swing your eyes to look at the edge, one or both views will black out.  To maintain both exit pupils is a real chore.  I've found that 60 to 65 degree AFOV eyepieces are about the maximum usable.  They also feel much wider than when used in mono mode.  Your Starguiders are right in the sweet spot.  The XWs are probably overkill.  The XL is right at the limit of usable AFOV.

Some people just like the extra field to frame objects without actually ever looking directly at the edge, and that's fine.  It's just not appealing to me.

[25585]

On 27/05/2018 at 08:39, Ricochet said:

I currently have 25mm Starguiders, 14mm XWs and a 10mmXW/10.5mmXL pair. On the moon this seems fine but now that the planets are around I've noticed that if I put an object at the edge of the field of view horizontally only one eye is actually seeing it. Bringing it into vision for both eyes requires moving my head rather than just my eyes. Does anyone else notice this issue? Does it only affect wide angle eyepieces or does it happen with every FoV? 

Edit: I would estimate that of the 70° field the central 50° is binocular. 

Happens to me with binoculars.

[25585]

On 25/05/2018 at 21:46, paulastro said:

The pairs I use are Baader Mk111 zooms, 16.8mm Kson Orthos and a pair made up of a 35mm Celestron Ultima and a 35mm Eudiascopic.  I'm considering looking out for a  Baader Hyperion 24mm to make up another pair with the one I already have.  I use them without a  GPC/barlow on my SW 180mm Mak,  and with a x2 SW barlow element in the nosepiece of my Baader Maxbright  binoviewer when using my Astro-Tech 102ED.

FLO are selling 35mm Eudiascopics if you want a twin pair https://www.firstlightoptics.com/baader-planetarium/baader-eudiascopic-ed-eyepieces.html

[paulastro]

Many thanks, but the Eudiascopic is a 'clone' of the Ultima which was the original - as far as I know.  Many years go in my astronomical formative years  (40 plus years ago?) the Ultima series of eyepieces were held in high regard.  There is no difference apart from the writing on them and the box!!

[25585]

4 minutes ago, paulastro said:

Many thanks, but the Eudiascopic is a 'clone' of the Ultima which was the original - as far as I know.  Many years go in my astronomical formative years  (40 plus years ago?) the Ultima series of eyepieces were held in high regard.  There is no difference apart from the writing on them and the box!!

Are they all not Masuyama design i.e. super-plossl types?

My TS bvs are on the way!

[tooth_dr]

I have a full pairing of the Meade 4000 EPs, but the 15mm pair in the BVs hit the sweet spot in my Ha scope with the 2.0 GPC.