bino viewer in mind

[Sean McDonald]

With two of the best observable planets in season, I'm curious to see what the views of Jupiter and Saturn through a pair of binoviewers would be like.  The posts on the web are almost all positive, and some folks are ecstatic with the views. 

Does anyone out there have a pair that I could look through?  Or if you've had any expirence with some (preferably with a Newtonian)... what was that like for you?

Just checking,
 Sean

[Sean McDonald]

Okay, well, I guess nobody has any experience with them - so after a fair bit of fighting with myself,  I've settled for a less expensive bino from Orion. Sort of a 'tester' set.   If I reallllly love the whole "bino-wiewing' way of viewing, larger sums of $ will be spent on finer product down the road.  Much larger sums   But that goes with the territory.

They should be here next week. Looking forward to 'first light'.

[Sean McDonald]

BTW... the bio-viewer is pretty darn good on Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, and the Moon!  Looking at DSO in them is not any better than a single eyepiece, and a bit dimmer.  It's comfortable since you don't have to squint one eye.  The views could be described as "3 dimensional", to some degree. 
 I'm using it on my Dobsonian reflector, so I had to put a barlow on the front of the bino in order to reach in-focus.  Without the barlow lens, I could not run the focuser in far enough to reach focus.  The up-side of that is that the views in the bino, with the 13mm eyepieces in it, and a barlow lens, are comparable to using a 6mm eyepiece!!  Nothing like looking at planets and the moon with some hefty power.

I usually bring them to the sidewalk events, and they get used when all we can see is the moon...