Amazing bino telescopes

[gorann]

Stumbled across this thread on a Portuguese astro site. Well worth a look.

http://www.astropt.org/2011/12/04/telescopios-binoculares-bino-telescopios/

[Kev M]

Awesome ...... 😃

[Geoff Barnes]

I suddenly feel completely inadequate.  

[Peter Drew]

I feel adequate as I have 150mm, 200mm and 300mm reflecting binoscopes already.  Looking forward though to how this new one develops.   😃

[Physopto]

One can only dream 🤔

[gorann]

16 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

I feel adequate as I have 150mm, 200mm and 300mm reflecting binoscopes already.  Looking forward though to how this new one develops.   😃

I have a feeling that the thread on the Portuguese site is rather old. You could restart it here Peter by posting images of your binoscopes!

[wimvb]

What am I missing here? What is the advantage of a bino telescope over a bino eyepiece? Other than comfort, that is. 

[Peter Drew]

3 hours ago, wimvb said:

What am I missing here? What is the advantage of a bino telescope over a bino eyepiece? Other than comfort, that is. 

A binoviewer halves the light from a single telescope although this is mitigated a bit by having a signal to both eyes.

 

A binoscope provides a full aperture to both eyes and the general perception is of 1.4x brightness enhancement.      😃

[gorann]

23 hours ago, wimvb said:

What am I missing here? What is the advantage of a bino telescope over a bino eyepiece? Other than comfort, that is. 

 

19 hours ago, Peter Drew said:

A binoviewer halves the light from a single telescope although this is mitigated a bit by having a signal to both eyes.

 

A binoscope provides a full aperture to both eyes and the general perception is of 1.4x brightness enhancement.      😃

Yes, but I think that it would not cost more to get a single larger scope with binovewers. For example, instead of two 4" refractors you could go for a 6" refractor and binoviewers. It also seems a bit more practical but obviously no to cool😉. However, it could be that the small prisms of affordable binoviewers gives a smaller FOW than a bino-telescope.

[Peter Drew]

3 hours ago, gorann said:

 

Yes, but I think that it would not cost more to get a single larger scope with binovewers. For example, instead of two 4" refractors you could go for a 6" refractor and binoviewers. It also seems a bit more practical but obviously no to cool😉. However, it could be that the small prisms of affordable binoviewers gives a smaller FOW than a bino-telescope.

Yes, this is the usual comparison and can be difficult to justify the cost of a binoscope other than to those who are binocular enthusiasts. A large binoscope is usually larger than a conventional binocular and carries a similar impression to a large refractor.  The odd thing, is that a 6" F8 refractor is perceived as being huge whereas a 6" F8 reflector is considered small.    😃

[alacant]

30 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

6" F8 refractor is perceived as being huge whereas a 6" F8 reflector is considered small

Hi

Yeah, that confuses me too.

Patrick Moore mentions it in 'The Observer's Book of Astronomy', so maybe in the 1960's they were?

Anyway here's a side by side. The reflector is bigger. Weight wise, not much in it.

Cheers

 

 

 

 

Edited November 12, 2019 by alacant

[Demon Barber]

Hi All i have finally remembered where i had seen a builder of bino scopes who had cracked the adjustment of said instruments,here is a link:http://www.aokswiss.ch/ayo/zubehoer/binoscope-holder.html  And the https://www.sciencecenter.net/hutech/borg/bino/index.htm     Matsumoto prism adjusters that make the whole system work.

Enjoy.

Mike

Edited November 14, 2019 by Demon Barber
Bad memory

[Physopto]

2 hours ago, Demon Barber said:

Hi All i have finally remembered

Getting old 🤣

[quaoar]

Hold my beer 🤣

 

 

 

 

[gorann]

Would be exciting to point that scope at something near zenith - I can see myself falling into it.

[ollypenrice]

On 11/11/2019 at 09:43, Physopto said:

One can only dream 🤔

One can only dream... of two! 

Our friend and guest Ralf Ottow once appeared with a C11 bino but it was a crafty one since he'd ground new corrector plates and secondaries to extend, slightly, the focal length. Although you can get it to focus with the double diagonals needed for bino use the scopes cease to be diffraction limited when using so much back focus. His subsequent creation, an entirely self-made giant SCT 'Binosaur,' is too large to leave the Netherlands, alas.

The question of light grasp is an interesting one though. Obviously it's doubled, but this does not appear to be how we perceive it. If I close one eye while in a low light environment, for instance, the image I see does not become dimmer. Does anyone know the physiology of monocular and binocular vision?

Olly

[Alan White]

I would be happy with many of the single versions of the scopes, but
Wow, what fun and what an achievement in building these things.
The double Takahashi units had me wondering why you would do that, then realised, because you can.

[wimvb]

6 hours ago, Alan White said:

because you can.

Not me. I have an Opticron Omega. Because I'm severely nearsighted with my left eye only, and have an unhealthy dose of astigmatism, super binos are probably lost on me. Now, a dual imaging rig, that would be something else. 

[Rob Sellent]

I think - but don't quote me on this - a binoscope offers the same performance of a telescope about 1.4 times its diameter. A 14" binoscope becomes a 20" monocular scope, an 18” becomes a 25”. Another more subjective evaluation would go as high as 1.8 times due to two eyes reducing 'false light signals', so contrast, darker background, and fainter objects are further augmented.

For all the potential benefits, weight, set up time and collimation must be a right pain

 

[gorann]

11 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

One can only dream... of two! 

Our friend and guest Ralf Ottow once appeared with a C11 bino but it was a crafty one since he'd ground new corrector plates and secondaries to extend, slightly, the focal length. Although you can get it to focus with the double diagonals needed for bino use the scopes cease to be diffraction limited when using so much back focus. His subsequent creation, an entirely self-made giant SCT 'Binosaur,' is too large to leave the Netherlands, alas.

The question of light grasp is an interesting one though. Obviously it's doubled, but this does not appear to be how we perceive it. If I close one eye while in a low light environment, for instance, the image I see does not become dimmer. Does anyone know the physiology of monocular and binocular vision?

Olly

You have a good point there Olly, and I should know, being a professor of physiology. I after thinking about it, and after doing the simple experiment of closing my eyes one at a time while looking at the computer screen, I think you are perfectly correct: getting the same amount of light into each eye does not equate to getting the double amount of light into one eye. So my conclusion is that looking through a 6" telescope with one eye gives your retina and brain more light and information than looking through two 4" binoscopes with two eyes. So, with one eye the 6" mono scope wins, because adding a bino viewer to a 6" single scope, which halves the light getting to each eye, will reduce the light to 50% to each eye so it would be equivalent to looking through a 4" binoscope with one eye. So the conclusion is that if you want to get as much light and detail into your brain as possible, go for a 6" mono scope with a normal star diagonal where you look through one eye only. I hope that made sense!

EDIT: To add to his, the only advantages for us and other animals of havng two eyes are to get stereoscopic vision, that aids in determining distance, and in getting a wider field of view, but none of these advantages applies to a bino telescope.

EDIT 2: That said, as we are binocular animals we probably feel more confortable looking through two eyes, but then we have to accept loosing brightness and information by only geting half the light to each eye if we use a bino viewer or two small telecopes rather than one big one.

Edited November 19, 2019 by gorann

[ollypenrice]

32 minutes ago, gorann said:

You have a good point there Olly, and I should know, being a professor of physiology. I after thinking about it, and after doing the simple experiment of closing my eyes one at a time while looking at the computer screen, I think you are perfectly correct: getting the same amount of light into each eye does not equate to getting the double amount of light into one eye. So my conclusion is that looking through a 6" telescope with one eye gives your retina and brain more light and information than looking through two 4" binoscopes with two eyes. So, with one eye the 6" mono scope wins, because adding a bino viewer to a 6" single scope, which halves the light getting to each eye, will reduce the light to 50% to each eye so it would be equivalent to looking through a 4" binoscope with one eye. So the conclusion is that if you want to get as much light and detail into your brain as possible, go for a 6" mono scope with a normal star diagonal where you look through one eye only. I hope that made sense!

EDIT: To add to his, the only advantages for us and other animals of havng two eyes are to get stereoscopic vision, that aids in determining distance, and in getting a wider field of view, but none of these advantages applies to a bino telescope.

EDIT 2: That said, as we are binocular animals we probably feel more confortable looking through two eyes, but then we have to accept loosing brightness and information by only geting half the light to each eye if we use a bino viewer or two small telecopes rather than one big one.

This makes sense to me but you say, 'EDIT: To add to his, the only advantages for us and other animals of havng two eyes are to get stereoscopic vision, that aids in determining distance, and in getting a wider field of view, but none of these advantages applies to a bino telescope.'

Might there not be another factor? In an accident of evolution, as I understand it, we are 'sided' creatures with two brain hemispheres, something which produces many curious by products. Could this have knock-on effects in regard to perception? I'm only speculating since I've no expertise in this matter.

Olly

[gorann]

1 minute ago, ollypenrice said:

This makes sense to me but you say, 'EDIT: To add to his, the only advantages for us and other animals of havng two eyes are to get stereoscopic vision, that aids in determining distance, and in getting a wider field of view, but none of these advantages applies to a bino telescope.'

Might there not be another factor? In an accident of evolution, as I understand it, we are 'sided' creatures with two brain hemispheres, something which produces many curious by products. Could this have knock-on effects in regard to perception? I'm only speculating since I've no expertise in this matter.

Olly

No accident Olly, all vertebrates have two brain halves, even fish. Our eyes are each connected to both brain halves so the info from each eye are processed by both brain halves (more precicely the optical cortex at the back of our brain halves). However, there is a devision of labor so our right brain half takes care of the left field of view and vice versa. Fish are even more specialized since their left brain half only receives information from their right eye (their optic nerves cross over), and vice versa. It has been shown for at least some fish that they use one eye and brain half to look out for food, and the other eye and brain half to look out for predators.

[wimvb]

From binoscopes to fish physiology; I just love this forum. Thanks for the lesson, Göran. 

Btw, if we could preserve the phase relationship of the light entering each half of a binoscope, there would be a true advantage, because the resolving power would increase.

Edited November 19, 2019 by wimvb

[gorann]

 

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

From binoscopes to fish physiology; I just love this forum. Thanks for the lesson, Göran. 

Btw, if we could preserve the phase relationship of the light entering each half of a binoscope, there would be a true advantage, because the resolving power would increase.

Allways happy to contribute some comparative animal physiology to the discussion here Wim, but I rarely get challenged to do it. I doubt that our vertebrate brains can take advantage of phase relationships of the light entering our two eyes, but maybe insects can do it, they are almost from another planet.

Edited November 19, 2019 by gorann

[Physopto]

Aye, and many can see in the infra red and ultra violet as well. We need expensive equipment to do so. Life just ain't fair! 😀