New Oberwerk 15x70s HELP!

Hello everybody!

I unpacked a brand new pair of Oberwerk 15x70s today and took them outside tonight. I'm a little disappointed as I've just came back in after trying to get a clean focus on Jupiter. I can tell I'm seeing a disk but it just never comes to a clean focus.

If I put the lens cap on the right objective and focus for only the left side I get a disk with coma flaring to the top right. At 2 o'clock I see a red tail and at five o'clock there is a blue tail. When I cover the left objective and focus for the right side the flares go off to the upper left. When both objectives are open with flares going left and right it's just not what I was hoping to get.

What I am wondering is; am I expecting too much from a pair of $150 binoculars? Is this level of coma in the center of the field of view typical and if I had bought another brand in the same price range would I see the same results?

For the last 20 years I've used a pair of hand held 10x50s and this is my first pair of tripod mounted "biggish" binos (so I'm not sure what I should expect).

I hope some of you can help me with an opinion or two before I decide to pack these up and send them back.

Clear skies!

Jerry

Jerry,

I think what you saw is typical in a pair 15x70s. I have a pair purchased from Burgess Optical and see the same thing you are seeing when look at Jupiter. I have no problem seeing the four moons, but never get a clean image of the disk. I think what this type of binocular is good at is scanning the Milky Way, viewing OC and maybe some double stars. I never intended to use mine for planetary or lunar viewing, so my expectations did not fall short. What I was surprised at was being able to see galaxies, such as M104.

Maybe some others can lend advice on lunar and planetary viewing with binoculars.

Hope this helped,

Pernel