Binoviewers

Hey all

I recently got an Antares binoviewer and two pairs of Antares Plossl eyepieces, 26mm and 12.5mm, off Astromart in the UK.

On Tuesday night I got the chance to use them for the first time, observing with an 8" SCT at f/10 the field of view was going to be narrow. The eyepieces are pretty bad, it looks like the previous owner tried to clean them with sandpaper. Anyway, I turned to the Double Cluster, clearly I wasn't going to get both of them into the same FOV, but viewing them individually the sight was simply stunning. I had heard about the 3-D effect and boy did I see it. The flat seeing that is normally seen is replaced by an overall feeling of depth, it reminded me of those 3-D pictures.

I moved on to M27 and again I was blown away, I genuinely believed that I could look around the side of the planetary to see the other side. The same could be said for M57. Looking at Albireo the colours appeared more vivid and the 3-D effect was greater, the pair literally stood out from the background.

After using them it's difficult to go back to single eye viewing, the eyepieces are the weak point. I have a set of Meade Series 4000 Plossls from 9.7mm to 32mm that don't get much use and I am giving some serious consideration to buying a matching set.

For my 80mm refractor an adapter is required, with its wider FOV I can only imagine swooping across the Milky Way and drowning in stars.

Welcome to the binoviewer club
Wait until you see the moon through those thing, when I saw it first through the binoviewer and the 12", it reminded me of the death star in star wars, :lol:, for the first time the moon took on the look of a 3D globe. !!

Sorry to hear about the eyepieces Paul. That is probably the first bad thing I've heard about buying something through Astromart. Unfortunately you have no return either.

I've bought numerous parts on astromart, only signed for 2 deliveries there today from purchases in astromart. The sellers have always been honest, if you found that they lied or mislead you in some way, then spell it out to them and negotiate a partial refund or a return, if they are not agreeable to this hammer them in the ratings section.
A single seriously bad rating is a trade death sentence for someone in astromart in my books.

I'm not condeming Astromart, I've bought numeorus pieces off the site, and no doubt I'll be buying again, and can't praise it highly enough. The price I paid worked out at about €120, the seller even knocked some off the original price, which was very decent of him. I believe that he did this because of the less than perfect 26mm Plossls, the 12.5mms are fine, they are still useable, but with cleaner optics the views will be better.

I've never attempted to clean an eyepiece before, is it difficult?

Just to clarify, you said it was "Astromart in the UK". Which website exactly are we talking about as there are a number of UK-based astro-trade websites? To be fair to Astromart, it works a little differently (ratings, reviews, etc) and is US-based.