Posts Made By: Nils Schoultz

Hi Tom,
I'm using a pair of 10mm supermonos which give me 168x in my 10" dob. They could also give 300x with the OCS, but 30 degrees afov means that whatever you are looking at fairly flies through the field of view - I stick to the 168x view. This is a bit underpowered for my scope, but it often gives me the best planetary views, which I think says a lot about the quality of the eyepieces. A pair of 13mm Nagler t6s give me a more appropriate 231x, but I often prefer the lower mag with the supermonos.
Small, light, easy to merge, and the narrow afov is a non-issue on planets. Eye relief will be comfy with the a pair of 16mms. The supermonocentrics are for me the most addictive of eyepieces. The views are so sharp that I found myself wanting one in each focal length I used for planets. The Naglers are great, too, of course. If your nudge nudge tolerance is lower than mine, you might prefer them. For me, 239x with a dob and supermonos would be test my patience a bit, but probably still be rewarding.
That doesn't give you much of a verdict, but I hope it is of some use.
Nils

Hi Robert,
I find the best solar viewing to be at about 35x - 55x, very rarely does seeing support more where I live. This is far short of the 150x - 200x I can use routinely on the moon, and I doubt any equipment would change that. I could be wrong, though.
Nils

I've bought and sold many an eyepiece here on astromart, and the only ones I've been disappointed with have been the Coronado Cemax. Sure, they are gold and shiny, but they are simply not worth $150. If they sold for $60, they would be fine, but for the price the fit and finish are disappointing. Looking at them first hand, it is clear that they are the same plossls that Orion and Celestron sell for $40 or so. Well, the Cemax coatings are optimized for hydrogen alpha viewing. Maybe so, but they still look and feel like cheap eyepieces and I don't think any special $100 coating has been applied. One of mine even had a bad coating flaw on an interior element. I don't have a hydrogen alpha setup, so I only used the 12 and 18mm Coronados with a Baader white light filter, but from what I've read here and elsewhere, we aren't dealing with a miracle coating that makes these eyepieces a better choice than orthos or LEs for h-a solar viewing. I was glad our sponser agreed to take them back from me - I would have been a bit ashamed to sell them on to someone else for $100 or so. Just not worth it. Hard to understand, because Coronado makes such wonderful products.

Thanks Milt,
good bedtime reading.
Nils

Hi Yudong,
I just bought a telescope from Markus and it is true he is in Arizona on vacation until the 26th. I'm sure he will answer you then, I imagine by saying something like what Donnie suggested, that he was talking about the Chinese optics companies he deals with, not about Chinese people in general. But he can speak well enough for himself.
The part of the review that sticks out in this context is the claim
"in fact it's SD glass, confirmed by the warehouse"
Input of numerous experts on this forum has shown that it is simply not possible to have a 6 inch ED/SD refractor for this price. More details can be found by reading prior posts from people like Roland, Yuri, and Markus who know a lot more than I do. So someone somewhere is putting out false information in this review; I imagine it must be frustrating to those in the business who do not operate in this way.
yours,
Nils

Hi Anthony,
I'm glad to hear you've liked the TMB, it is sorely missed. There are some nights when what you really want is a small refractor - a dob or cat just won't do. I second Mark's recommendation of the 17mm, it does not perform nearly as well in my f4.7 dob and I imagine it misses the TMB as much as I do. From my bright driveway, however, this wasn't quite enough magnification for galaxies and faint open clusters. Most often the 12mm t4 or the 10mm Pentax xw made dso's stand out better against the background sky. Depends on your site, obviously. I'm sure an ortho/plossl/monocentric would be just as good, but I like a lot of framing room and eye relief so always used widefields in this focal length.
Just got news that my new TMB shipped yesterday, some weeks later than expected, but such is the way of things. Thanks for the observing reports - it is great to imagine the scope I know so well seeing all those great southern hemisphere sights I've only seen in pictures.
Nils

Hi Kate,
On Jupiter, Saturn, the moon and the sun, a binoviewer on the c90 would be fine. I haven't used one myself, but I used a binoviewer on my 80mm refractor and have heard of them on 76mm refractors. Deep sky objects would be out, except for maybe the brightest of open clusters, but you probably knew this anyway.
I don't think there is any difference in size of telescope needed for a 2" vs. a 1.25" binoviewer, but the only 2" model is made by Harry Siebert and is really for Harry Siebert fans only. I wouldn't recommend one of those contraptions on any size telescope. Hope this helps.
Nils

Here with drawtube extended. The finderscope bracket was included, the finder itself was not. It is from TEC and is very nice. I'm a telrad/quickfinder kind of guy, so will soon sully the appearance of the TMB with one of those plastic contraptions.

It really sounds like you have a collimation problem, Larry. I'd give Denkmeier a call - even though you bought them used I'm sure they'll treat you well in adjusting them. Binoviewers really have to be a "put them to your face and enjoy" kind of thing - if you have to strain to merge, set the ipd closer than you would like, not use high power etc. you'll never be happy with them. If in collimation, none of these things will be necessary.
good luck,
Nils

The asymmetrical distortion of the field that both Merlitz and Fan Tao found in their pairs was present in mine as well. The lower portion of the field of view held its sharpness until near the edge, very much like the Fujinon, while the upper portion of the field became blurred really not very far at all away from the center. Color rendition was better in the Fujinon as well - a stone wall in my yard appeared more yellow in the Miyauchi, and early spring leaves were a more golden green compared the pure colors found in the Fujinon.

Still, the Miyauchis are wonderfully light, it is hard to overstate this advantage over the Fujinon, so I looked forward to the evening. At night the same distortions noted in the day were even more obvious as star images showed much more blurring in the upper half of the field than in the lower. Still, the field is very wide and impressive. There is a final problem, however, which really clinched it for me that I had to return the Miyauchis. The field is not perfectly round. It is close - indeed I did not see this fault in the daytime, and only confirmed it the next morning - but the field is not circular. The bottom of the field is flatter than it should be, and darkening is visible near the bottom, making the edge of field indistinct. I have never seen anything like this in any binocular and hesitate to speculate on what the cause may be. Perhaps the prisms are simply too small to illuminate the whole field; perhaps the light path from both objective tubes is misaligned. Perhaps it is something else entirely. Whatever the reason, I found the effect very distracting at night, and in the day once I was aware of it and started inevitably to look for it. The light cutoff, the distorted field of view, and the optical problems mentioned earlier combined to make an unsatisfying experience, so I was happy to be able to return the Miyauchis.

I write this report with something of a heavy heart, because I had long searched for a wide-angle, low-power binocular like the Binon, and was thankful that Miyauchi had listened to our small hobby and catered to our needs. I was prepared to put up with distortions in a widefield binoculars, I understand this is unavoidable when working at what must be something like f3. Still, I don't think it should be too much to ask for the distortion to be symmetrical and for the field of view to be circular in a binocular that costs nearly $700. Again, I bought these used, and there does seem to be some variation, but if you are still interested in trying a pair of these I would make sure to discuss the possiblity of a return.

Now I only hope that my Fujinons will forgive my brief infidelity. I tried to make it up to them by ordering a new pair of 10x50 FMT-SX, just now available for sale here in the US. I'll give a report on these after I have a chance to try them out.
Nils