Last evening at the close of our regular monthly meeting, the TAA members adjourned to the Eckes observatory to experience what was a somewhat unexpected pleasure.
Not long ago, in an effort to adjust for my relatively advanced astigmatism, I purchased the Orion bino’s from Amazon for around $200.oo. My first thought given the price for these beauties was I was about to waist a couple of bills. The most popular bino on the market is the Televue and it sports a price tag close to a $1000.00, way outside of my explainable budget to the wife. But the reviews all pointed to the Televue as the contender for these types of eyepieces, so I wasn’t expecting much. Well….we loaded the viewer with dual Meade 26mm super plossl’s, installed the doubler on the viewer and dropped it in the focuser…..The best conclusion was WOW!!
The overall performance of the twins was far more that what I expected. Views were clear with little to no eye strain, and the adjustment for inter occular distance was easy. The final approval came when Mr. Eckes, the envious owner of the coveted Televue, stated and I quote “Man…these are better than mine!!!!!!”
Nuff Said!
All in all, a very nice eyepiece at any price. The only drawback of the unit loaded with lenses is the weight. On my modified Dob (another post), the weight of the eyepiece threw the center off balance a bit making it top heavy. Lots of ideas about counter weights and brakes ensued, but at the end of the day, a very small inconvenience in comparison to the overall viewing pleasure of the Orion set. I would highly recommend these to anyone.
I have the Denkmeier “Big Easy” Not the TeleVue binoviewer. The main problem with my binoviewer is internal reflections from bright objects. The Orion binoviewer prisms were antireflection coated. This gave a much more pleasant view of Jupiter and the moon. I paid about $550.00 for my binoviewer.
Now see. That’s what I get for listening to the older brother.
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