Saturday night April 19, 8:00 to 11:30
Start night mag 4.5, by end of night mag 5.0* little dipper was vis
Darker skies towards SW, the area I was viewing.
Seeing sometimes wavering, most times still, crisp.
Last night I used the Fujinons 16 x 70s to do a left eye, right eye, both eyes test. Squinting closed I saw far less out of the other eye. Standing and leaning back I wavered a bit too much and again saw less. Finally, I went and got a lawn chair, set it under the UA Unimount Light. After I put a pillow behind my neck I had a nice comfortable seat, nice sturdy rig, settled in, little bumps damped in 2 seconds. Then I was able to concentrate on the task at hand.
Earlier I verified that M44 was rich in faint stars. I counted 80 stars in the region with my Oberwerk 20x80s and I counted 130* in the same region using my CR150 with a 27Pan. There were more than enough faint stars that I would not be able to reach the faintest magnitude stars in the area and be counting all there was to count. I found a stream of faint stars to the right of center from the NW to the SW of approx 20 of the faintest stars seen in the binocs. This was my test area.
When I first started, I wasn't being exact counting and I was convinced I was seeing all there was to see whether with two eyes or one eye. Finally, I recorded four or five successful counts with each eye and with two eyes. The counts varied with each attempt, but I always got counts of 14 or 15 in my right eye 15 or 16 in my left eye (my scope viewing eye) and 18 or 19 with both eyes.
Rather than close one eye in a squint, I covered my other eye with a thin black glove. The most notable difference is it was just so much easier to sit back and look with two eyes that everything popped into view and a few averted vision stars appeared in the two-eye viewing. There were a few stars in the sorrounding fileds that I did not see when I was standing. I was very clearly able to see better settled in the lawn-chair with all motion quieted down. The end result is I did see more in my test area with two-eye viewing. My results spread from a minimum difference of 16* to 18* all the way up to a maximum difference of 14* to 19*. The difference between the best reading with my scope eye to the best reading with two eyes of 16* to 19*, was an improvement of almost 20%.
In the past I never really accurately measured this. Regardless of what I thought in the past, this clearly indicates to me the degree of improvement with two-eye viewing. Certainly it will vary with the individual but this is at least an indication that it’s not just a marginal gain but more of a factorable increase.
edz
Start night mag 4.5, by end of night mag 5.0* little dipper was vis
Darker skies towards SW, the area I was viewing.
Seeing sometimes wavering, most times still, crisp.
Last night I used the Fujinons 16 x 70s to do a left eye, right eye, both eyes test. Squinting closed I saw far less out of the other eye. Standing and leaning back I wavered a bit too much and again saw less. Finally, I went and got a lawn chair, set it under the UA Unimount Light. After I put a pillow behind my neck I had a nice comfortable seat, nice sturdy rig, settled in, little bumps damped in 2 seconds. Then I was able to concentrate on the task at hand.
Earlier I verified that M44 was rich in faint stars. I counted 80 stars in the region with my Oberwerk 20x80s and I counted 130* in the same region using my CR150 with a 27Pan. There were more than enough faint stars that I would not be able to reach the faintest magnitude stars in the area and be counting all there was to count. I found a stream of faint stars to the right of center from the NW to the SW of approx 20 of the faintest stars seen in the binocs. This was my test area.
When I first started, I wasn't being exact counting and I was convinced I was seeing all there was to see whether with two eyes or one eye. Finally, I recorded four or five successful counts with each eye and with two eyes. The counts varied with each attempt, but I always got counts of 14 or 15 in my right eye 15 or 16 in my left eye (my scope viewing eye) and 18 or 19 with both eyes.
Rather than close one eye in a squint, I covered my other eye with a thin black glove. The most notable difference is it was just so much easier to sit back and look with two eyes that everything popped into view and a few averted vision stars appeared in the two-eye viewing. There were a few stars in the sorrounding fileds that I did not see when I was standing. I was very clearly able to see better settled in the lawn-chair with all motion quieted down. The end result is I did see more in my test area with two-eye viewing. My results spread from a minimum difference of 16* to 18* all the way up to a maximum difference of 14* to 19*. The difference between the best reading with my scope eye to the best reading with two eyes of 16* to 19*, was an improvement of almost 20%.
In the past I never really accurately measured this. Regardless of what I thought in the past, this clearly indicates to me the degree of improvement with two-eye viewing. Certainly it will vary with the individual but this is at least an indication that it’s not just a marginal gain but more of a factorable increase.
edz