Astronomy

[Gasdoc]

Just getting started with Astronomy. A friend recommended binoculars before a telescope. Do you use binoculars? any recommendations .

[WanderBred]

Orion's makes some good ones.

[Telescopist]

Originally Posted by Gasdoc

Just getting started with Astronomy. A friend recommended binoculars before a telescope. Do you use binoculars? any recommendations .

A link to the binocular section of the Cloudy Nights forum All about binoculars.

YouTube vid

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One of a zillion tutorials.

I'm a telescope guy. That said, I occasionally play around with my 10x30 IS Canon binoculars. Mainly because not only do they have excellent lenses but I can hold them for an extended period of time without my arms giving out.

Phil Harrington's "Touring the Universe through Binoculars: A Complete Astronomer's Guidebook" is a gem. You might consider purchasing a copy of that before anything else.

[John in Santa Cruz]

I love the new binos I bought last year... designed and sold by APM Telescopes (a german optical specialist), they are 10x50 "ED" wide angles. gorgeous bright sharp views.

I jerry-rigged this rather nice setup, using my camera tripod with a tilt-pan head, and my camera monopod with a ball head, and a random counterweight.

[Padre]

I learned late in live, buy good optics.
Leica makes some good hiking binoculars-ultravid. $700 plus, and worth it.

[John in Santa Cruz]

the inline 'roof prism' style binoculars are sub optimal for astronomy, where you want a maximum aperture, and minimum number of internal glass surfaces and prisms.

an optimal astronomy binocular has an objective thats 5-7 times the power, like a 10x50, the 50mm objective is 5X the 10 power.

[brroberts]

I’ve never done much with binocs. I don’t see well, and my thick glasses absorb a lot of light. So for me is a minimum is a 4” apo refractor or 8” Dob. My grab and go is a cheap 10” Dob. My observatory is a C14. My folks started the bug with a 60mm refractor, but my first scope was a 13” Coulter. Lots of people like the big Dobs, but that doesn’t work well where I’ve lived, so that’s why the C14. I do have a cheap 4” F/5 achromatic for low power wide field views. It’s as close to a bino view I get for astronomy.

[John in Santa Cruz]

if your eyeglass perscription is mostly spherical, and has a low cylinder componnent, then you just refocus the telescope to use it without glasses. if you have significant astigmatism (said 'cylinder') then you either need to wear the glasses and get eyepieces with significant eye relief, or get Televue eyepieces with their "dioptrix' corrector lens according to said Cylinder prescription, and rotate it according to the angle on your Rx. https://www.televue.com/engine/TV3b_page.asp?id=54
the catch with this is, no one else can look through your scope, unless you take the dioptrix off for them and let them refocus.

fwiw, those ATM binos I mentioned have pretty good eye relief, like 20mm with the eyecups folded back, so you can use glasses and still see the whole 65 degree apparent FOV.

[Gasdoc]

Thanks everyone for the useful information. I will look at the resources mentioned before I go shopping.

[brroberts]

I do use longer eye relief eyepieces. I don’t like dealing with the add ons for my astigmatism even if TeleVu made them big/strong enough for my prescription, which they don’t. It would take custom made, and it would change every few years. Not a plan I would follow.

[John in Santa Cruz]

I have mild astigmatism, but I still like to wear my eyeglasses at the eyepiece as at least half of the astronomy I do is outreach, where I'm sharing views with the public, so I want my telescope focused for 'good' vision. When I choose eyeglass frames, I try and find ones that put the glasses as close to my eyes as practical without my eyelashes touching when I blink. current pair are only 'so so' at this, but the lenses, made from some new ultra-clear low dispersion plastic with some special new oliophobic antireflection coatings, are so good that I tolerate the slight extra gap. at higher powers with smaller exit pupils, I find I don't need to wear my glasses to get a decent view in a telescope, but at 10x50 binocular powers with a 5mm exit pupil, they are a must.

[Telescopist]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

the inline 'roof prism' style binoculars are sub optimal for astronomy, where you want a maximum aperture, and minimum number of internal glass surfaces and prisms.

an optimal astronomy binocular has an objective thats 5-7 times the power, like a 10x50, the 50mm objective is 5X the 10 power.

I'd hesitate to say that the roof style prism is "sub optimal" for astronomy. Many of the higher quality binocular optics are now using roof prisms. In the last decade or so, Phase and dielectric mirror coatings have made roofs and Porros very close in light transmission.

Perhaps your statement is valid for the cheaper brands and ranges in the Porros vs Roof types?

I agree that Porro prism designs are particularly advantageous when it comes to astronomy because of the internal structure of the prisms. The images are slightly offset. The viewer experiences this subtle sense of a 3-dimensional effect. Let alone the advantage of a wider field of view.

I suppose if I hadn't just spent $2K recoating my 20 inch mirror, new filters, etc. etc. I might spring for, say a 15x70 Celestron Sky Master Pro. And build a version of your mount!

Any pair of binocs is better than nothing. As with many things, A good roof will kick the snot out of cheap Porro and vice versa.

[John in Santa Cruz]

well, I'll hold my $350 (ok, they are $500 now) APM porro prism 10x50 ED's up against any $2000+ Swarovski or Leica or Zeiss roof prism binos, for example, the $2800 Zeiss Victory HT 10x54. 23mm eye relief vs 16, 6.5 degree FOV vs 6.2 degree. The Zeiss are gorgeous, but the APM are just as good, flat field edge to edge, zero chromatic aberrations, extremely good contrast. The Zeiss are about 10 ounces lighter, i'll give them that.

[Telescopist]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

I have mild astigmatism, but I still like to wear my eyeglasses at the eyepiece as at least half of the astronomy I do is outreach, where I'm sharing views with the public, so I want my telescope focused for 'good' vision. When I choose eyeglass frames, I try and find ones that put the glasses as close to my eyes as practical without my eyelashes touching when I blink. current pair are only 'so so' at this, but the lenses, made from some new ultra-clear low dispersion plastic with some special new oliophobic antireflection coatings, are so good that I tolerate the slight extra gap. at higher powers with smaller exit pupils, I find I don't need to wear my glasses to get a decent view in a telescope, but at 10x50 binocular powers with a 5mm exit pupil, they are a must.

I [had] a moderate case of astigmatism which as I got older made even reading more difficult let alone looking through an eyepiece. It was a huge help when I switched to the Pentax line of eyepieces with their 20mm eye relief. But the real life changer came in 2016 when I had Toric lenses installed. No more astigmatism!.

[Telescopist]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

well, I'll hold my $350 (ok, they are $500 now) APM porro prism 10x50 ED's up against any $2000+ Swarovski or Leica or Zeiss roof prism binos, for example, the $2800 Zeiss Victory HT 10x54. 23mm eye relief vs 16, 6.5 degree FOV vs 6.2 degree. The Zeiss are gorgeous, but the APM are just as good, flat field edge to edge, zero chromatic aberrations, extremely good contrast. The Zeiss are about 10 ounces lighter, i'll give them that.

This conversation has endless pages on Cloudy Nights.

[brroberts]

Yes Cloudy Nights is good. Unfortunately Toric lenses don’t fix it all for me. I too own both some Pentax and TeleVu eyepieces.

[Telescopist]

Originally Posted by brroberts

Yes Cloudy Nights is good. Unfortunately Toric lenses don’t fix it all for me. I too own both some Pentax and TeleVu eyepieces.

For me the astigmatism problem went away. I don't have 20-20 vision and was told not to expect that to happen. What I did recover was distant vision something I began to lose when I was only 4 years old. What I lost after the transplants was close up vision. Now I need reading glasses.

One troublesome thing is my night vision. I experience diffraction spikes at night from bright lights. It is particularly vexing when driving. Soon after the procedure, I worried that the spikes would carry over to observing. Really worried. It didn't. The first time I looked though an eyepiece (probably a 14mm Pentax) I was enthralled. For the first time ever I had the entire FOV to enjoy. I got rid of all my TeleVue eyepieces except for the 31mm Type 5 which I consider the best eyepiece ever designed. I stuck with the Pentax line of eyepieces.