7x35 and 12x50 Comparison

I took my 7x35s and 12x50s out tonight just to see the difference and to see if I'll be happy with the 7x35s.

First thing I noticed was the much much much less shake in the 7x binos. 2nd thing, it was light enough for me to feel the difference when I picked up my 12x50 which tired me after just 5mins of pointing up.

In terms of stars, the bigger FOV in the 7x showed me the "shapes" of the star patterns better making it easier to star hop. In the 12x the FOV was obviously smaller but still good enough for me to recognise shapes with a 5mag star map - I just needed to recognise a smaller section at a time.

In the 12x, the stars were obviously much brighter and sharper to the edge which of course means I could see more stars. In the 7x, stars were of course dimmer and I could only make out the few brigher stars in my area.

In a more practical test, a 5.66 star(Yale2565) was easily seen with the 12x50s while it was hardly discernible in the 7x35s and only seen because I knew it was there and looking for it. I would have missed it if I were just casually looking at that area. Neighbouring star (Yale2566) at 6.16 was almost invisible to the 7x while pretty much quite obvious in the 12x.
A 7 mag star nearby was lost in the 7x while the 12x could still detect it. (Yes, I've got really light polluted skies!!)

Overall, I find the 7x35s are very good binos for star hopping and learning the constellations and positions of the major stars. It is of course much better for casual handheld viewing.
The 12x50s are better for seeing a little more detail in the the constellations and actually seeing and hunting for things like star clusters and stuff which the 7x might now show.

For me, I'll probably bring the 7x35s out when I wanna learn about the constellations and for casual viewing. The 12x50s will be a complement to my scope for me to roughly locate the object and see where it is (or the stars around it) before I use my telescope. For travel, I would probably bring the 12x50s as they show more detail in clusters and are closer to actually bringing a telescope (very much different but relatively closer, if you know what I mean). For travels when I bring my Megrez 80mm, the 7x35s would complement it better I guess. =)

Well, just a short comparison between the 2 ranges of binos I have. Please remember that besides specifications, the quality of the binos are very different. The 12x50s are the better ones with better coatings and mechanics which I actually paid for. The 7x35s are China made Olympus which my dad got for free when he bought a camera.

I think these 2 binos will work very well together to satisfy the different viewing needs of their owner. The next thing to do is to get a 20x80 to get slightly more detail and resolve more stars ... instead of using a telescope.

I'm starting to fall in love with Binocular astronomy!!

SVP Intelliscope "Second Light!!"

After my first light with the Intelliscope last night, I was so excited I told myself I had to go out again tonight.
Decided to drive about 45mins out to slightly darker skies and thank God the skies were clear!! Only sad thing was the very very bright sky glow about 20deg in the East ...

So I set it up as usual, aligned everything and started my wonderful journey ...

Having not planned what to view that night, I used the Sky Tours provided by the COL. M51, M42, M41, M47 and alot more star clusters I can't remember all came within the FOV of my 25mm EP. (I neglected to bring my journal cos all I wanted was to check out how the COL worked and to do some Star testing/collimation ... )

Here's the wonderful thing, of the MANY star clusters I saw tonight, I don't think I would have found half of them if I had used my 8x50 RACI finder and RDF combo - when I looked into my finder AFTER looking through the EP (the weird reversal after getting a Push To device ... ) I couldn't see anything! Sometimes all I could see were just maybe 2-3 stars or maybe 5 at best I would not have thought that was a star cluster ... (That's how bad the light pollution is here in Singapore)

The only Nebula I found tonight was the Orion Nebula though (I've been looking at it every session since Nov... ) It looked beautiful tonight as it was the first time I was using my new (2 days old) UltraBlock AND Celestron OIII filter. It really jumped out at me with the OIII and I swear it was like someone turned up the dimmer to the Nebula although I know it's just the darkening of the background ... =)

No luck with the Crab Nebula, Californian Nebula and Eskimo Nebula though ... Never seen these before and couldn't find them with my 30mm(67x) EP even with my OIII on .... I might be using too low a magnification and the FOV might be too big for Nebulas ... I'm gonna try finding Nebulae exclusively tomorrow night ...

And now to the MOST BEAUTIFUL THING TONIGHT!! My wife who used to find coming out with the telescope too troublesome and tedious (although she loves naked eye and binocular astronomy) told me after the session that she couldn't wait to come back for more tomorrow!!!
It's the ease of pointing the scope and the fact that she could get involved in pushing the scope and "finding" the objects instead of waiting for me to find objects for her that gets her excited about the scope.
I foresee it's gonna be great for both of us! Another great thing is she's already asking me if they sell better accessory trays to place the COL and RA/DEC controller on and what EPs are good with certain things, which filter makes Saturn look better etc ... I'm gonna be able to buy so many more things now ... hee hee ...

On that note though, although objects were in view most of the time, they were not perfectly centred and were mostly off to one side in my FOV. It might be cos my mount was not properly polar aligned because the objects were off to the side that stars drifted to, =) So, it might still be my fault after all ...

This is one upgrade I really love and although I've been thinking of getting a beefier mount, I think I'm gonna keep this one just cos of the COL .... for now. Somehow I prefer the idea of a Push-To compared to a GOTO, I love the involvement.

Well, that's my SVP Intelliscope report for tonight and once again, I'm enjoying it more than ever. It's true - I saw more things in one night than Galileo in a lifetime ... =) In my case though, I see more things in one night than I ever would if I didn't have it to assist me.

SVP Intelliscope "First-Light"

Seeing that skies were clear, I brought my scope out just to see how well the COL works. I was pretty worried cos after making the DEC=0 mark, I actually took out the dovetail to add a washer to partially fix an RA axis problem.

After setting everything up, I aligned to DEC=0 ...Out came the message - "Thank you" .... Hmm, the Intelliscope's pretty polite - Just like Orion's Customer Service ...
Align Star 1 - Sirius, "Thank you" ...Align Star 2. Betelgeuse, "Thank you". DONE! (I was blocked from other bright stars so these western stars were all I could use at that time)
WARP FACTOR +38.1!!!!??? After trying to find my first object, it said "Encoder Error"

Aaahh .... the DEC encoder came lose ... so I did a quick Encoder test and pushed the encoder in .. DONE!
Did the whole alignment process, Warp factor +0.1 .... GREAT! =)

Oh no, I could see clouds coming in from all four sides, so I quickly tried to find a few items just to check the accuracy ...

M42, M41, M47 .... all came into the field of view ... even in my 25mm reticle EP.

Hmm .. there's a star just overhead ... wonder what that is(didn't bring any star charts), let's try the ID function .... "Searching .... " Prochyon" .... Cool!! Used it as the 3rd alignment star ... Warp Factor = -0.1 ... yay!

Saw Saturn just to the South Eastern sky, so I thought I'd try it. Enter Date, done. Saturn was not in the FOV of my EP but around the centre FOV in my 8x50 Finder (Keep in mind the 2 stars I used to align initially were both in the western sky and were very close together) .. so I centred it and used it as my 4th Alignment object. Warp Factor = -0.3 ... OK ...

Tried a few other stars, and they all came near the centre of my reticle EP. The clouds rolled in and I had to stop my session ....

I'm really happy with the Intelliscope! It's $200 well spent. Can't wait to try it out on another clear night with a wider sky area for me to move the scope. =)

Now with the COL working, I've gotta spend some time on my collimation, dew shield and a proper way to pack my scope and accesories ... =)

My Telescope ..

Been spending lots of time on Astronomy lately .. I guess it's one of those phases ... Still eagerly waiting for my Push-To Computerized Object Locator system to arrive .. it's taking ages ... And of course that pair of Nebula Filters that are supposed to make viewing much better ... Can't wait to try them all out!!
Well, here's my beloved C8 (Celestron 8) telescope on a SkyView Pro German-Equatorial Mount - My "Main" scope .. I've got a "grab & go" scope for travel and portability too ... will probably share pictures of it soon too ...

My first Post ...

Just thought I'd start a blog to easily share pictures and information bout what I'm doing ...