Straight through viewing.

Well, I haven't been into Astronomy for a couple of years now. I got rid of all my equipment a couple of years ago. Recently I got the bug to get back into it. I ordered a Meade LXD75 6" refractor, and a WO binoviewer. As usual I get a little carried away when I start wanting things for a new hobby. I buy things that I haven't tried out but, sound good in the reviews. It's half the fun for me.

I'm going to try out some binoviewing this time round. Some of my viewing will be looking around the valley at stuff. I've read in a couple of places that you can do "straight through" viewing with no diagonal. Straight through seems like it would be comfortable while sitting or standing while looking straight ahead.

Anyone ever use the ole straight through method?

Oh yeah, The thing I'm wondering the most is will it focus? Seems like it will need some sort of extension tube.

I have done quite a bit of straight through observing though generally at night. A day or two back I mounted a 75mm Pentax EDHF on a TMB 175 and will use it for low power, widefield mostly. From a seated position the Pentax and a 30mm Pentax XW are perfectly placed for straight through viewing. A friend in Japan tells me that Japanese observers do the majority of their viewing in this way. In day time use the image will be upside down.

Straight through seems like it would be comfortable while sitting or standing while looking straight ahead.

Anyone ever use the ole straight through method?

For terrestial viewing, one of the real advantages of the star diagonal is that the images can be erect, ie right-side-up. This is helpful because it means everything is right side up rather than upside down. It will be reversed left to right but this is not so bothersome.

When using a binoviewer straight through, you are going to have a lot of weight hanging out pretty far on the focuser, this will likely cause some difficulty.

jon

When I first got my scope, there were a couple of weeks before I got a diagonal, and I observed straight-through. I finally made up my mind which diagonal to buy, and figured when it arrived I'd have a big shoot-out and see what these Japanese guys were up to. Never happened. I slipped it in, said "good grief" in relief, and never looked back! For what it's worth, I saw no difference. The neck bone connected to the, eye bone.
Ron

Your buying habits sound like mine, Brian. My condolences.

I've done straight through with a SV1 binoviewer on both an FS78 and a TV102. Got it to focus OK without the adapter, but there wasn't a lot of in-focus travel left, as I recall. As long as the object was within about 25 degrees of the horizon, straight through was fairly comfortable....but the mount has a pier extension that gives it more height.

Also tried using a 1.25" diagonal. Needed the 1.6x barlow/adapter to reach focus. With diagonal, adapter and binoviewer, there was quite a load on the focuser and I wasn't real comfortable with that. Obviously, there's less load when straight through.

I think you'd do fine S-T for terrestrial viewing. I'm going to try elevating my mount more to get S-T to work for higher angles. I'm also at 43 deg. N., so S-T bino planet viewing is definitely a possibility. Might also try it in a little C6 SCT OTA that just arrived.
Bob