Dismiss Notice
New Cookie Policy
On May 24, 2018, we published revised versions of our Terms and Rules and Cookie Policy. Your use of AstronomyConnect.com’s services is subject to these revised terms.

class="prefix prefixSilver">Discussion Agena's Guide to Choosing Astronomy Eyepieces for Binoviewers

Discussion in 'All Other Observing Equipment' started by Agena AstroProducts, Apr 22, 2017.

Agena's Guide to Choosing Astronomy Eyepieces for Binoviewers

Started by Agena AstroProducts on Apr 22, 2017 at 12:07 AM

7 Replies 4688 Views 1 Likes

Reply to Thread Post New Thread
  1. Agena AstroProducts

    Agena AstroProducts Vendor

    Joined:
    Jul 16, 2015
    Posts:
    293
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    Los Angeles Area, CA
    Are you an astronomy binoviewer enthusiast, or would you like to be? The latest equipment guide from Agena AstroProducts helps you sort through the operation and quirks of binoviewers so you can select the best pair of eyepieces for your budget a nd observing interests. Read the article here.

    choosing-eyepieces-for-binoviewers_620x265.jpg
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2017
    Zigarro likes this.
  2. BillP

    BillP Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 3, 2015
    Posts:
    165
    Trophy Points:
    343
    Location:
    Vienna, VA
    Brian,

    An absolutely outstanding article and resource for those interested in binoviewing! Stuff like this really aids the amateur astronomy community!

    -Bill
     
  3. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 10, 2016
    Posts:
    4,919
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Great article. I believe the Baader MaxBright bino's are discontinued now though. I have heard rumours of a new design.
     
  4. Zigarro

    Zigarro Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 17, 2016
    Posts:
    227
    Trophy Points:
    28
    Superb article~ I was curious about binoviewers and I learned much~ thanks!
     
  5. Ed D

    Ed D Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 12, 2017
    Posts:
    852
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Sunny South Florida
    Excellent article, very thorough and easy to understand for the novice wanting to get into binoviewing. Thank you very much for making this wealth of information available to the amateur community.

    Ed D
     
  6. jgroub

    jgroub Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 7, 2015
    Posts:
    199
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Location:
    Denver, CO
    Good article, covers all the bases well. If you don't mind, a couple of critiques.

    Paragraph 2 says, "That means each eye gets, at most, only half the light collected by the telescope's objective, so you see fainter images compared to observing without binoviewers." That's a poorly phrased so that it ends up being confusing. This gives the impression that a binoviewer will let you see fainter objects. The opposite is correct: objects appear slightly fainter in binoviewers versus using a single eyepiece because all the additional glass in the optical path.

    In paragraph 5, it says, "To get a wide range of magnification with your binoviewers, you may wish to get several pairs of eyepieces. Of course, it doesn't take long before the number of eyepieces in the collection of a binoviewing enthusiast becomes cumbersome. To get four magnifications, for example, you need eight eyepieces."

    However, as you discuss throughout the article, most binoviewers come with OCAs, or "nosepieces", that act like Barlows. For example, my Arcturus Binoviewers came with 1.85x and 3.0x nosepieces. I therefore get three magnifications solely from the 30mm Plossls that also came included with the binoviewers, so that there's no need to buy additional eyepieces to create binovieing pairs. And again, most binoviewers, at least at the lower end of the cost spectrum, come with a pair of eyepieces included, so even with just one included nosepiece and the pair of eyepieces that come with the binoviewers, you've got two magnifications right there. So in these situations, there's no need to buy all sorts of eyepieces so that the collection becomes "cumbersome."
     
  7. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 10, 2016
    Posts:
    4,919
    Trophy Points:
    113
    In my experience most low end bino's don't have eyepieces or GPC/Barlows included at all. If I knew what I know now I would have bought a low end bino without eyepieces/GPC's and supplied my own.
     
  8. Agena AstroProducts

    Agena AstroProducts Vendor

    Joined:
    Jul 16, 2015
    Posts:
    293
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    Los Angeles Area, CA
    Thank you for your comments above @jgroub. We've tweaked the text to account for both your suggestions.
     
    jgroub likes this.

Share This Page