Dave's 16 Inch Binocular Telescope Page
It will take time
for me to put my experiences to words, but I can only say that in
30 yrs of
deep sky astronomy observing this was the finest two nights I have ever had. Things
that spring to mind were the sight of Jupiter, watching an eclipse of one of
it's satellites.
Observing the glorious globular cluster Omega Centaurus
nearly overhead, with twin
17mm Naglers, with the feeling that one was
suspended over the top it, and seeing
individual red giant stars glittering
amongst the pack.. I felt as if I was seeing the object
for the first time.
The glorious Eta Carinae nebula appeared as a turbulent mass of
shining
fluid with in a sea of scattered jewels. And dark lanes and dark nebula look
black .._ink_ black. We observed the dark Nebula Barnard 86 overhead and
many
other dark Nebula in the Milky Way. Roaming through the Large Magallenic Cloud with
twin O111 filters, field after field was wreathed in
Nebulosity. The Tarantula Nebula
showed an amphitheater of nebulosity lit
by a cluster of Super giant stars, but in a dimensional
way I had never
scene. Galaxies benefited from the increase in sky blackness afforded
by
the improved signal to noise ratio with fainter parts more easily visible
than with one eye.
Having had two nights
experience with them, I conclude that...and this may sound strange...that the
more potential there is to see in an object, the more
the binoculars shine. Objects with little surface detail such as faint galaxies
seem to benefit less from the binocular vision. The view was still more
comfortable, and that strong feeling of `presence' was indisputable, but
the gains seems to be less. Visually complex objects such as Globulars,
brighter and detailed Nebula , and even clusters seemed to show a striking
improvement, I think due to the brain being able to confirm subtle details
that it may otherwise be overwhelmed by, amidst all the complexity.
Colours are enhanced
too: we spent some time looking at the colour difference in double stars
which often seemed striking with all that light collecting area.
Planetary nebula also showed stunning improvement. I feel the issue of the
benefits of a true binocular telescope for deep sky observing is a much
more
complex one than first thought. I don't feel as before that there are hard
and fast rules, such as the equivalent mono aperture being say 40% more,
which
may be used by ATM's to decide whether to invest in building a binocular
or not. I think its simply a case of comparing apples and
oranges everything
simply looks different the view with two eyes gives you a feeling of
presence and reality about what you see that simply defies any comparisons
between mono/ bino views. I liken it to viewing in a parallel Universe or
something...
If you want
astronomical views to be as good as you can have, using separate optical
systems in the way that we already have mounted in our head, and