Posts Made By: Malcolm Garris

Just to the north of Rima Hyginus in Mare Vaporum is a curious (mountain?) formation that looks like a giant claw (or mouth!) gouged out some of the lunar maria surface. During waxing moon my attention is always drawn to it, but so far I've found no name or other info except that the small crater Ritchey lies in the middle of it.
Can anyone provide further information? Thank you.

First some background. I already own an Orion Scenix 10x50, Celestron
Optiview 10x50LPR, and vintage Meade 11x80 (mid eighties probably
Japanese made). I am in my mid forties and living/viewing in
urban/suburban skies (so no 7mm exit pupil for me). I have a distinct
preference for binoculars that can be hand-held rather than requiring
a tripod (so no more than 15x).

My current binos all have their pros and cons. My 11x80's have the 7mm
exit pupil which was great when I bought them for Halley's Comet.
Nonetheless they are still hand-holdable, especially when you grip
them close to the objectives. The Optiview 10x50LPR binoculars (with
togglable LPR filters) are a great concept and works very well for
bringing out nebulae (enough to interest me in buying another
different pair), but the BK-7 prisms makes the binoculars not as
ergonomic as BAK-4 binoculars such as my Scenix 10x50 (or even the
11x80's in some respects).

There are some new binoculars out that intrigue me. Apogee has some
LPR binoculars similar in concept to the Optiviews, but using BAK-4
prisms. Models I'm considering are:
10x60 $89.95 (10x only if higher would not be recommended)
12x60 $89.95 (probably a good mag compromise but opinions wanted)

12x80 $229.95 (would it be any significant gain over the 11x80s that
I have now to justify the price?)

Other binoculars (without filters) I am considering:
Celestron Skymaster 15x70 binoculars (would they be harder to
hand-hold than 11x80 binoculars?)
A used pair of Orion (Japanese made) 14x70s that I've seen for sale.

Opinions please. Although I have a tripod my intent is still to mostly
hand-hold them (in urban skies). Thanks. Malcolm

I hope sometime this year to buy image-stabilzed binoculars, mainly for astronomy. There are only two that I consider to be within a reasonable price-range: Canon 10x30 (starting around $300) and (Russian) Newcon Optik 16x50 (starting around $550). I know the Canons have received great reviews, but does anyone have any experience with the Newcons (they don't use batteries)? If they are decent they might be worth the extra $, with the extra aperture and magnification. But I really don't know if the quality is up to snuff. Opinions please, particularly from those who have tried them.

Thanks, Malcolm

Before I read the thread I thought that you injured your toe by dropping a big heavy Nagler on it. You could send the pic to Al at TeleVue and demand compensation, like maybe a Panoptic.

The Simmons 70" monopod sells for about $35 or so depending on where you buy it. It's real helpful for the taller folk. Not sure how durable it would be as a trekking pole though. But it's light, fairly strong, and is still compact.

A good question, but maybe it should have been broken in half:
1. Let users have yahoo and hotmail accounts?
2. Let users use aliases?

I voted against a combined question, but would have voted yes on #1 and no on #2.

Likewise, but I voted Yes in the poll. I still favor the first but not the second part of the poll question.