Telescope Reviews: Ultra low-power observing

I recently cobbled a pair of extremely interesting binoculars together from various parts I had lying about in my boxes of various ATM parts. A pair of optically poor 8x21 pocket binoculars were cannibalized and their eyepieces and prism clusters removed. Then I attached a pair of 28mm eyepieces from an old 7x50 binocular that I had also cannibalized some years ago. I had to use a couple of old film canisters, lots of black tape, a bit of cardboard and some creativity to make it work, but now I have a 3x21 binocular with inverted views!

The inverted view takes a little getting used to, but the views are quite stunning! The contrast is extremely good and the true field superwide, over 14 degrees, even though the eyepieces only have a roughly 40 degree field. I have only tested them under pretty mediocre conditions (some twilight visible, but the milky way still visible), but lots of large and dim objects are jumping out! The sharpness could be better, so I may have to find better eyepieces or otherwise fiddle with them. The back focus is far enough from the rear end of the housing that I can actually make some 1.25" adapters and use 1.25" eyepieces, with all the options that gives me, including the use of filters.

The original focus mechanism is still working, since it focuses by moving the objectives!

I aimed it at Lyra and the whole constellation fit in with lots of room to spare. Seemingly thousands of stars barely stood out from the background, presumably because the binos lack a bit in sharpness. If the view had been a little sharper, showing the stars better, the view would have been jaw-dropping, fantastic as it already was. Turning to Cygnus, the Veil was not visible (but this was with twilight visible to the north) but the North America Nebula was very easy. Lots of structure was visible in the milky way and several prominent starclouds were spotted in Aquila, some of which I've never noticed before, likely because they're too faint for the naked eye and too large for normal binoculars. NGC 6940, the large cluster in Cygnus stood out very obviously and I wondered why I normally never paid much attention to it.

Turning to M31 and M33 I honestly didn't expect much, but I was very, very wrong! I did expect them to show up, of course, but M31 only as a small elliptical glow and M33 only very dimly visible.

But not so! M31 was extremely easy, with a tiny nonstellar bulge sitting inside an elongated glowing disk. The view reminded me of views of Messier galaxies in much larger scopes. It was amazing. I didn't spot the companions, but I wouldn't rule spotting M32 out under better conditions.
M33 was the big shock of the evening. As stated, I only expected a faint glow, but the galaxy almost jumped out at me as a very obvious glow in a rich field. Stunning!

I am now very excited about how much these little superbinos will show me under very dark skies as they seem to offer a whole new experience of the night sky, offering clearly enhanced views over the naked eye, yet retaining much of the fascination of naked-eye stargazing. And how will they perform on aurorae and nocticulent clouds? Or meteors? They do perform absolutely wonderful on daytime clouds.

And now for the million-dollar question: Why are such binoculars (with correction prisms) not offered by any major maker of astro binoculars???? Surely, even more impressive versions than my humble ATM sample could be made for a reasonable cost.

Clear skies!

Thomas, Denmark