An evening with the family

[Davesellars]

I'd setup late afternoon with the 80ED and binoviewers to give them a go first time properly on the Sun with Baader film filter.  Using a 45 degree prism diagonal that came with a Skywatcher scope I was able to obtain focus using a pair of essentially equal 25mm plossls that also came with a couple of different scopes.

White light solar success and the view of the Sun was certainly much easier with two eyes than one!  My Wife joined me for a little while and we both viewed the various sun-spots that are scattered on the surface at the moment.  She was quite impressed that you could see so much on the surface!  The 25mm plossls are sufficient for solar WL with the binoviewer's barlow giving essentially 2X and I think that increasing magnification with the boiling surface probably won't be beneficial.

Apart from the Baader filter, everything was left out for viewing the Moon later.  At just after 10pm, the Moon was rising magnificently looking large and beautiful with an orange/yellow hue to it.  Through the binoviewers the view was quite something!  As others had mentioned before it was much easier to relax into the view and just soak it in the view.  Although there was some CA caused from the 45 degree erecting diagonal it wasn't too bad - certainly this would be improved with a non-erecting prism I believe.

My daughters (9, 7 and almost 5 years old) and Wife were all keen to come out and have a look especially as it still very warm.  As the Moon rose a bit higher it became steadier.  With the 25mm plossls the full disc was visible in the field of view but with great clarity and comfort with the brightness actually not too bad considering it was almost fully illuminated.  My 9 and 7 years daughters were both gobsmacked by the detail and were relaying back all the details they could see (rilles, valleys, mountains and seas).  My 4 year old was searching for the Man on the Moon! 🤣  An hour flew by with all three taking turns...

While waiting for turns my Wife and daughters scanned the sky remarking at the many satellites that could be seen crossing.  One shooting star (perseid) was seen, and I was a little surprised more wasn't as we head towards the maximum.

While waiting for Saturn just to clear a large bush, I turned the scope to the Double Cluster, this was not ideal with binoviewers imho with quite a lot of the fainter stuff being lost, but my daughters were both impressed with the massive amount of stars still visible..  It was very late and my youngest now hit the hay as she was starting to get cranky!

Back to Saturn and with the binoviewers I could certainly see a touch of CA in effect because of the brightness of the object.  Still, the view was nice and clear in the binoviewers with a great view (although small) of the rings.  My daughters really loved this!  Definitely, needs 10mm eyepieces though to produce and effective 5mm eyepiece focal length which would good power for this type of object and Jupiter...  So will be on the lookout to duplicate my 10mm BCO.

I changed over to mono vision and popped in a 4mm eyepiece...  This was superb on Saturn.  The Cassini division was easily visible and the seeing was quite steady for good moments of time.  This was a little more difficult for my daughters to initially use one eye instead of two but once they got it, both gasped at the level of detail and size of the gas giant.  my 9 year reported that she could see the Cassini division as well once I explained what to look for.

It was almost midnight and both my daughters retired for the night.  I stayed out for a little longer viewing Saturn alone.  It was beautifully clear night, the transparency seemed OK but not great - the full Moon sufficiently bright even if it was low down that the Milky Way could not be seen and so I called it a night at close to 1am.

So, the binoviewers were a success!  I think if I can find a good price for a standard Celestron 90 degree prism as these don't have compression fitting which is not suitable for the binoviewer nose and also a second hand 10mm BCO, I'll be set...