Deep sky viewing last night

Had a chance to really see what my Denk standards had to offer last night with my 8" Newt. I live at 9300 ft in the mountains in northern Colorado, and last night was one of the first nights where everything was perfect since I got my Denks. 30 degrees,very clear and Dark! I put a Pentax 28XL mono mode in my scope and looked at M51 to compare with two eye views with 25 Ultrascopics. The Pentax showed the two bright cores with subtle circular misting around the cores, with slight structure obvious. Very nice. With the Binoviewer with the 25mm, the image was quite larger; slightly dimmer with subtle structure. Very impressive for a 8" scope. At times I felt I could detect the bridge, but it was hard to say. The comfort level with the binoviewer cannot be described. Its one of those things everybody just has to try for themselves. After reading Floyds post recently I thought to myself; how can you say binoviewing is not helpful!. I know this crazy out of control forum is sometimes a negative outlook on Binoviewing, but man,they are missing so much! I also cruised over to M81 and M82 and M64(the "black eye" was Slightly detected);M3 and M13 rising in the NE. (Awesome). The only bad thing that has happend with Binoviewing is that I've concluded that my Little Tak 78 is to small with a binoviewer, and it has to go. I'm now serously looking at the new computerized 10" Dob from Orion, but I'll wait for reviews to come out. All and all, an awesome night!!!

Brian:

Great report - THANKS!

I must admit that reading reports of binoviewing had me thinking about getting one. However, what got me NEEDING one was when I had a chance to use one for a couple days. After that, I knew I had to have one. It has offered a whole new kick-in-the-pants to my hobby. I can't imagine viewing the moon or planets without one. Shortly my OCA should arrive and low"er" power viewing should open up the rest of the sky to my two eyes.

I must admit binos aren't for everyone. I had a friend who tried opserving through the ones I had for a trial and he did NOT like them. Had great trouble merging and seeing much. To me it was so natural. They've also been a Godsend for a person like myself, plagued with floaters. Jupiter has ALWAYS had some burring junk drifting by its globe for me, and now that is mostly gone thanks to redundant information going to my brain.

Thanks for the positive report. Send some more.

Clear and two-eye'd skies

Tom M

Great report Brian. I know what you mean about getting a bigger scope. I bought a binoviewer for my 4" refractor and ended up buying an 11" SCT to compliment the BViewer. Pat G.