Lights out – the Universe is ON – man, there’s a bright side to everything including darkness ;-)

I guess most people wouldn’t consider it  a good thing to go to bed at 11 pm and wake up at 2 am in a totally dark house – the power out. I did last night – well,this morning really. (OK – it was yesterday morning. Took me a while to finish editing this I [...]

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Who was that masked binocular?!

Oh boy! Been having a discussion on Cloudy Nights about astigmatism, etc. and the last post.  What was bothering me was, among other things, how to separate the impact of power increase from the impact of exit pupil change. See, in my last experiment, detailed here, what I did was take a 50mm objective and [...]

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Mars a cosmic eyeball – but first some binocular tests – uh – with a monocular

Ok, Mars in the binoviewers just blew me away this morning – not to mention Saturn.  I just could not get over the impression of Mars as the eyeball of a gargoyle – an impression that seemed enhanced by the binoviewer’s  faux-3D effect. But that all came after I did some serious experimenting to try [...]

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ooops, Hello BV – where you been hiding?

Ok, I’ll eat my words. When was it? Last week, perhaps, or the week before? That I tried binoviewing once more and swore that would be my last trip down that road? See, I have ventured into binoviewing a total of five times now over several years. My most successful experience was with an early [...]

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Mintaka, binocular doubles in the Pleiades, ET, and a ghostly M1

Wow! Now that I like! Mintaka in the 10X30 IS Canons. A bright, flaring second magnitude star with a little pin point of light nearby. What’s the big deal, you may ask?  Mintaka, the western most of the three stars in Orion’s belt, is an easy split, as I wrote in some detail here recently.  Sure [...]

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Dragons delight! Galaxies Galore! All in the 30mm Universe

Windy, cold, but clear! I’ll take that any day over the muck we’ve had recently, though I must say seeing was poor and the older I get the less fond I become of cold. But what was keeping me warm last night was the fun of opening up the 30mm Universe – the night sky [...]

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