Posts Made By: Tom Hole

Final impressions are made.

http://www.tomhole.com/Binoviewers.htm

Keeping the Denk II's, selling the Denk stds and TV's.

Tom

James,

Do they carry a cannister version? My wife is really pushin' for the Miele, but for $1200, I could get a fairly nice astronomical accessory.

Tom

Thanks for the chuckle

We bought the Miele Blue Moon for an unholy amount of money. I guess that's what my wife said about the Starmaster. Now I know how she feels.

Tom

Uh oh, Miele has 2 e's in it.

Craig,

Saw your ad that goes with this post. Might be some confusion over an H alpha and an H beta filter. H beta filters screw onto an ep or diagonal for viewing deep sky stuff:

http://www.lumicon.com/hbf.htm

Cost anywhere from $100-$200. DO NOT USE THESE AS A SOLAR FILTER! Unless you like excrutiating pain.

H alpha filters are a dedicated telescope or system that is integrated with your telescope for solar viewing:

http://www.coronadofilters.com/index.shtml

These start at $1,000 and go up from there. They are very nice for solar viewing. You might see this in one:

Tom,

I try them all and keep the ones that work best for me. Don't care what name brand is on them, whichever peforms the best for me will win every time. Where can I get the Econolens?

I've tried 21 different pairs of ep's in my binoviewers over the past year.

http://www.tomhole.com/Oculars%20Filters%20Etc.htm

What has stayed is dominated by Televue, not because I'm a Televue snob, but because they worked better than the others. Although, the 15 Pan has been a disappointment (comfort and image wise) and I haven't found a replacement yet. I will say that in some cases, the only advantage the TV brought to the table was a well corrected wide FOV. Even the lowly 25mm Sirius plossl compared well against the 24 Pan, except for AFOV. None of the type 6 Naglers beat the UO orthos for image quality, but that extra 37 degrees of AFOV is sure nice.

So, bring 'em on. If Econolens can put up the same performance and ergonomics as my TV's, I'll sell the TV's in a heartbeat. Then I can use the money I saved to get into Ha and imaging.

TOm

Mike,

You can try rotating the ep's in the holders. Might help. Also, if you have Denks, there is always a little wiggle available if you push hard enough on them. Try tilting the ep's in the holders. If you are using a Televue, they are immovable once you tighten the ep holder up.

This will only lead you to the conclusion that your binoviewiers are probably not collimated. Or maybe they are and you cannot repeat the ep placement every time they are inserted. I found this to be true when my Denk Stds still had the delrin ep holders. Convenient, but they were unpredictable. Play around with wiggling and see what happens.

For reference, I have no trouble merging 7mm orthos in any of my binoviewers, even at 505x with a 2.5x corrector.

Let us know what you find.

Tom

Tom,

I can only speak to the Televues as they are the only other binoviewer I have owned besides Denks.

The Denk OCS will not fit the TV's directly. A T adaptor kind of thingy must be used. I got one from Denkmeier. Here's some gouge on how it works (towards bottom):

http://www.tomhole.com/Binoviewers.htm

Not sure about any other brands. I do know that the Power Switch is only available on the Denk binoviewers or as a retrofit for current Denk binoviewer owners. Can't buy one stand alone.

Tom

Floyd,

There is a review of them in the lab section of Cloudy Nights. I think Harry has a lot more to offer for the same price. The only thing I can see that the BinoMates have going for them is light weight.

Clear skies,

Tom

Brian,

I would love to see more first time binoviewer reports and more comparisons of cyclops to two-eyed viewing from folks that just made the transition. I find that info to be very valuable and perishable. I no longer do any cyclops comparisons for 2 reasons: 1. I hate it, 2. I seem to have lost all one-eyed viewing skills. Seems that the art of viewing with one eye is a perishable skill. Any comparisons I make at this point are truely biased and not very useful.

I guess I could make more observing posts, but without comparisons, they don't seem germaine to this group. It's just another observing report. I guess it might be helpful for other folks to compare what they saw, though. And it might convey some important points with respect to comfort and amount of detail that can be seen even with all that whacky glass in the way.

I have posted quite a bit of observing info on my website:


http://www.tomhole.com/What%20will%20it%20Look%20Like.htm

Much of that observing was done with binoviewers.

We will try to liven things up a bit.

If anyone hasn't tried binocular viewing, it's as much fun, if not more, than binoviewing.

Clear skies,

Tom

I'd go with Jim's put and keep the IS and buy the other two as well. If you find the IS's sitting on the shelf all the time, then sell them.

I just got a pair of previously owned Canon IS 12x36 (not the II's) from a right nice fellow here on Astromart (sorry, JimR, first time I ignored your advice . First impressions: The hold the button down requirement is less than desirable (this is not an issue on the newer ones). The weight is 2.1 lbs, which is tolerable but not what I would classify as lightweight. They are not as "get out of the way of the view" comfortable as the Pentax PCF 7x and 10x 50's I tried. Where are the end caps? Seems silly to have a pair of $600 binoculars without some sort of protection available outside the case.

Ok, enough negatives. I always get those out of the way first, especially if I really like something.

The amount of detail I have been able to see on terrestrial targets (especially my fuzzy dog's head) is significantly increased with IS on vs off. With IS off, I noticed the phenomenon where the eye is chasing the ant on the flag at 30 yds and it is extremely difficult to count legs or make out the feelers. Push the magic button, though and the ant clearly has 6 legs and 1 feeler (must have had a tragic leaf blower incident). The dog's ears needed cleaning, BTW.

Anyway, these 12x36 IS's can stay for a while. At least until I can give them a go at night. I suspect that I will be pleased.

So, keep your IS's. They seem to be all that.

Clear skies,

Tom