Posts Made By: Glen Scott

Tom are you looking for pictures or weight data.

If there was a published thirty day money back guarantee I would be trying out the Econolens. My eyepiece needs were met by Siebert Optics designs. I purchased a set of 32mm 52degree,22.5mm 65degree UltraPlus and 19mm,15mm,11mm,
70degree Ultras. TeleVues were never in my budget and in side by side comparisions with Pentax's and Panoptics I can't see a difference in performance. The lighter weight of the eps is also is nice for binoviewing purposes.

Legendary Zeiss quality,state of the art AR coatings and the largest clear aperture at 28mm of any prism based unit.Zero false color. If I had the money to buy them it would be a no brainer.It may also offer as much as a .5lb weight savings as well. Scotty

In a SCT,clear aperture and AR coatings.These two criteria will yield the best DSO performance.
Satisfying performance can be had with smaller clear apertures and less than state of the art AR coatings but DSOs take a minor hit when compared to the performance of the biggest clear aperture units.For refractors and newtonians some sort of OCA is generally required to reach focus.
The light transmission effectiveness of the OCA and the ability to reach focus in your scope with the bino-OCA combination is critical. It is here that smaller apertures don't pay as big a penalty on DSOs as the OCA can off-set to a degree the vignetting that takes place.The only obvious down side to a smaller clear aperture is vignetting on longer FL eps. I am limited to a 26mm FL ep with BW-Optics binos before the edge
of the field ceases to be fully illuminated. My TV binos will work
with much longer FL eps before the edge is under-illuminated. Practically the performance differences between the two binos are not large when the equalizing effect of the OCA used with them to reach focus is factored into the equation. The above comments only apply to properly constructed and internally baffled binos. The quality
of construction must be present first.

Here is link that may help.
http://www.buytelescopes.com/search.asp?q=TeleVue+Barlows&s=&x=18&y=7

I realize that you have sold your Black Nights some time ago and are presently not having the aforementioned issue,do keep in mind that Siebert Optics has a long standing policy of free cleaning.
I have have had good luck in preventing dust on or in my binos by keeping the lens caps in place when not in use.

Tom, I won't waste your time discussing Siebert Optics new line of 2in.Binoviewers as cost appears to important, but I would like to point out that the original Black Night binoviewer is a cost effective alternative to the Binomate and is well supported with a complete line of OCAs. It's 22mm clear aperture means that up to a 26mm ep can be used without vignetting. Binoviewing package deals are also available.
Hope this info helps, Clear Skies, Scotty

Rob,you will need an Optical Corrector Assembly/OCA and Siebert Optics makes optimized correctors
for all makes of binoviewers including yours. No adapters are required for your binoviewer since
these correctors are made for your unit.Hope this info helps,Scotty

Belive it or not it is almost that simple.The problem comes when you try to recollimate the binocular head after removing the .956 eyepiece holders and replacing them with the 1.25in holders. The other problem that rears its ugly head is unwanted reflections in the field of view when you
use them for astonomical applications. This is where experience in properly baffling them to eliminate the unwanted reflections comes in. Every binohead is a little different internally and requires a slightly diferent approach to solve the problems.You can probably make a functional pair of binos but it will take some trial and
error work to do it. At least one other poster to this forum has built his own based on a Nikon head. Maybe he will see you Question and respond. Good Luck and Clear Skies, Scotty

Bear in mind that the products that were submitted to Sky and Telescope for review were directly obtained from the
manufacturer and the functionality of the binoviewer and its accessories were completely under the control of the manufacturer. They were not purchased by the magazine at random from a vendor.These units are not mass manufactured,this is a small company we are talking about
and quality control should be rather simple,you inspect and optically check each product for performance before it is shipped,period. It is possible that Russ has switched sources for his optical elements and they no longer meet spec for his applications. As to why he shipped accessories which have obvious workability problems beyond simple quality control, this remains a mystery. If I was
shipping something to be reviewed by Sky and Telescope
I would have made very sure that it worked as advertised
and meet or exceeded all specifications before shipping it off. Scotty