Odd trick to try and use with wide FOV Eyepieces with good eye relief

[StarDuke82]

I sometimes have found with wide field of view eyepieces that also allow good eye relief that I can use both eyes to observe. I usually focus first with one eye then move back away from the eye piece and position myself slowly while relaxing my eyes, whenever I do this the scope and eyepiece seem to vanish and I am left looking at what I am observing seemingly floating in midair. It’s sort of like the technique used to see those magic eye pictures from the late 90’s early 00’s and probably crosses your eyes 😂 and is difficult to maintain without losing focus but an unforgettable and amazing experience akin to viewing through binoviewers without the setup. 

[Sunshine]

Ooh interesting! i was always able to see those images (stereographic images) almost immediately, i have to try this if not just for fun as I can’t imagine holding this technique too long.

[Neil_104]

Yep I had a few of those magic eye pics up on my wall back in the 90s 🙂 I'll give this a go next time I'm out - it sounds intriguing - thanks for posting!

[StarDuke82]

On 26/04/2023 at 18:06, Sunshine said:

Ooh interesting! i was always able to see those images (stereographic images) almost immediately, i have to try this if not just for fun as I can’t imagine holding this technique too long.

Let me know how it works out for you I’m genuinely curious if this works for others or if this is just some fluke I managed.

[StarDuke82]

On 26/04/2023 at 18:06, Sunshine said:

Ooh interesting! i was always able to see those images (stereographic images) almost immediately, i have to try this if not just for fun as I can’t imagine holding this technique too long.

Let me know how it works out for you I’m genuinely curious if it works for others. Also sorry for the delay in responding.

[StarDuke82]

18 hours ago, Neil_104 said:

Yep I had a few of those magic eye pics up on my wall back in the 90s 🙂 I'll give this a go next time I'm out - it sounds intriguing - thanks for posting!

It’s actually something I stumbled across after reading an article about observing the night sky and it said that the best astronomers use both eyes when viewing through their telescopes instead of one and I thought how could one do that without binoviewers so I decided to try some experiments one night and amazingly it worked but it’s extremely hard to maintain and easyto lose focus and hard to get back into. Far easier to use just one eye but for a brief fun moment its a interesting and fun way to observe. Let me know if it works out for you.

[Neil_104]

So I gave it a go the other night, and I couldn't get it to work unfortunately. In fact, I seemed a very long way from even being close to making it work. I'll be honest though, I was genuinely quite excited when trying, it felt like a bit of an adventure 😂

Which eyepiece did you use? I was trying with a Morpheus.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Neil_104

[John]

Is is an interesting idea but as far as I understand it, the exit pupil created by the scope / eyepiece combination is usually somewhat smaller than the eye lens of the eyepiece and exits the eyepiece though it's central axis. Given a typical low power eyepiece exit pupil of, say, 6mm diameter I'm not sure how one could hold this disk of light with both eyes at the same time ?

Maybe I'm missing something 

I will give it a try though, during the next clear night. I hope I don't end up permanently cross-eyed !

 

[StarDuke82]

6 hours ago, John said:

Is is an interesting idea but as far as I understand it, the exit pupil created by the scope / eyepiece combination is usually somewhat smaller than the eye lens of the eyepiece and exits the eyepiece though it's central axis. Given a typical low power eyepiece exit pupil of, say, 6mm diameter I'm not sure how one could hold this disk of light with both eyes at the same time ?

Maybe I'm missing something 

I will give it a try though, during the next clear night. I hope I don't end up permanently cross-eyed !

 

Well you are basically by focusing both of your eyes on single point of light, since your eyes are so good at picking up light in the dark with an eyepiece with a wide enough exit pupil (I find it works best when I try it with my Zoom Eyepiece) you will see just the light of what you are observing. I may just be able to do it because my peripheral vision goes bad at night and it’s like I am in a tunnel so that could help with this. 🤣 I will add that I am not very far away from the eyepiece when I do this say if the eye relief is 20 mm then I am just a bit past that just enough that I can see the eyepiece with both eyes but still be within the exit pupil

Edited May 6, 2023 by StarDuke82