Posts Made By: jaroslav zaharchuk

Hi,

While I don't own any of these expensive eyepieces, I can understand why they're priced as they are.

First, they're low volume items, hence higher manufacturing costs. Second, they are made to extremely tight mechanical tolerances, and they use many precision machined parts, which again adds to the costs. Third, they often have many optical elements (6 to 8 typical?), again more cost. Fourth, they often use special types of costly low dispersion glass, again more cost.

Actually, the costs of these eyepieces is probably in line with the cost of similar complexity high-quality camera lenses, such as are used with 35mm camera systems. Medium format lenses are usually priced higher still (lower volume).

Anyway, that's how I see it.

-andy z

Hi James,
I currently own Zeiss 7X45 night Owls, 7X50 SL Nikon Prostars, and 8X42 Bausch & Lomb Elites, plus a few others with higher powers and larger apertures. These three are all outstanding, but the best (for astro work) is the Nikon Prostar, by a significant margin. Key differences are the flat field with pinpoint star images across the entire field of view, and significantly less color when looking at bright objects such as the moon and bright planets. Also, the additional aperture is significant. One needs to be able to take advantage of the 7mm exit pupil though, something my eyes can no longer do. I'm going to sell mine for this reason. It is my opinion that the high end Nikons are the best binos avaliable, at any price, and I've owned several other Zeiss, Swarovski, Kern, and Pentax binos over the years. I've owned Nikon 10X42SEs, and the 10X70 Astroluxe as well, and they're best in their respective classes of aperture and magnification, without doubt. Another possible sleeper (for your purpose) is the Pentax 7X50 IF with built-in field flattener lenses, thought I've not tried them. I own the similar 10X50 Pentax IF, and it is a truly outstanding bino, also with field flattener lenses built in.
-andy zaharchuk

It will certainly be interesting - and even amusing, if it weren't for the lives lost and huge expense gone for naught - to follow the Bush administration's creative spin on this, while the troops are being bugged out.

I doubt that they'll top Clinton's "it depends what the meaning of the word is is...", when he was in hot water.

Clarke worked for three or four Presidents, didn't he? Tough to discredit him, but the current administration and the neo-conservative media have sure been trying.

Bush deridingly referred to the Geneva Conventions doctrines, requiring humane treatment of PWSs and civilians, as "legalisms".

With our President and Commander in Chief of our military considering the Geneva convention in that way, it is little wonder that all the atrocities have occurred.

Bush himself set the standard of conduct by the way he talked about the Geneva Conventions.

Now, well-intended and patriotic American military personnel, of low rank, who had no training on the Geneva Conventions, and some who never even heard of them before being accused, will wind up paying the price, probably with prison terms and destruction of careers, as scapegoats.

Of course, Rumsfeld has been doing an outstanding job as Sec. of Defense, the best ever, according to our President.

God Bless America.

I owned the 10X70 Astroluxe binos for several years. The Nikon 10X70 Astroluxe, and the 7X50 Prostar for that matter, are the very best binos I have ever used, in terms of optical performance for astronomical viewing. Extremely flat field, very well color corrected, and truly edge-to-edge pinpoint star imageges. I sold my 10X70's recently only because my eyesight has deteriorated because of age, as my eyes I can no longer take in the full exit pupil these binos provide.

As a matter of comparison, I own (or have owned) Swarovski, several Zeiss's, Fuji's, Kern, Pentax, Bausch and Lomb, and numerous other brands of high-end binos. The Nikon Astroluxe and Prostar are as good as they get. As an aside, the 10X42 SE Nikons are also top notch, and are considered to be one of the very best binos for birding.

It's not much different than the Iraqi prisoner who was beaten to death with a flashlight by one of our guys, a contract worker/interrogator, while in prison. Or, the little boy who had his head blown off in Afghanistan by a cluster bomb (BBC reported this) , or the little girl who had her arms torn off from the war there (someone posted a pic of this here on Astromart a while back, but Herb pulled it off).
The gruesome beheadings are terrible. It's being played up in the media, and the sensationalizing of it is not doing any good for anyone. Every single death that's happening there is a tragedy.

What the terrorists are doing is trying to get the S.Korean people to be against U.S. foreign policy (especially in the Middle East), and force the S.Korean government to reneg and not send the 3000 troops they said they'd send to Iraq. There may be street riots in Seoul before long over this terrible thing. The S. Korean population is becoming less and less aligned with US foreign policy. The older S.Koreans who experienced the Korean war are no longer players in Korean politics, and the younger generation(s) don't reacll how the UN (mostly the U.S.) saved their butts about 50 years ago.

The thing in Sudan has been going on for at least 15 years. Over 1 1/2 million have died there from the war and the effects thereof. The latest is that there are Arab gangs, evidently sanctioned by the 'government', killing and driving blacks out of southwestern Sudan. Iraq has been small potatoes in comparison, in terms of the devistation and loss of life.

Watch US interest pick up on the area though, now that oil has recently been discovered there.

The news media and talk show hosts would love it. They'd be able to drag on and jaw about it for at least a week.

Recall two young women involved in the shootout during the brief Iraqi war itself. They made a heroine of the one from Arizona, awarded her military decorations, and the governor named a mountain after her (Piestewa Peak). All that actually happened was that she (and others) made a wrong turn and got caught in an Iraqi ambush, and she got shot and was sadly killed. No heroics whatsoever, but the media milked the story for several weeks.

The situation with the second woman was even more interesting. The army supposedly sent in a special, highly trained force and bravely rescued her from captivity her after she was captured. She was in the same ill-fated convoy that Piestewa was in. The Pentagon did major news releases and press conferences about how she heroically defended herself and fought bravely, and how effectively the rescue was pulled off. Turns out it was all bull.

What really happened was that after the ambush, and after she was wounded, some local Iraqis took her to an Iraqi hospital and cared for her there, until the so-called special military rescue team completed their mission, "saving" her from her Iraqi hospital bed. There was no Iraqi resistance during the "rescue", the Iraqi medical personnel who were caring for her were glad they had come for her because they were not equipped to properly care for her, given the wartime circumstances there.

Rumsfield's military PR personnel proclaimed her a national hero, and Hollywood was going to make a movie about her. However, she spoke up and declared that what the military and the media was saying was not the way it really happened. She didn't bravely defend herself, she simply got shot in an ambush, and she never returned fire as had been claimed. The military acknowledged their error, as did some news media folks.

I originally thought it was a bad idea to have women integrated throughout the military. To me it seemed better to have special branches like the WACS and WAVES of WW2 in non-combative roles. I still think separate branches would be better. Considering the fact that women military personnel have gotten pregnant while on duty aboard naval vessels, and numerous young women have been sexually abused at our nations military academies, and there have been other military sex scandals (like Operation Tailhook), I still think it was a mistake to have women integrated in the military.

It all came about because of pressure on the government by women's lib groups, and the government essentially caved in to their demands, against the recommendations of the military leadership, BTW.

Therefore, I feel that if young women want to participate throughout the military, they could and should expect to endure the attendant risks. If that potentially means beheading, cruel as it is, that's the way it has to be.

And if it happens, we'll all be able to watch the news, and listen, and be appalled, as the media has another one of their field days.

Let's all hope it does not happen.