Telescope Reviews: First Impressions with the BIPH Image Intensifier

I'm the BIPH owner Mike referred to.

I'm still pretty much a newbie and because of other constraints I don't manage to get out often, that night in Chiefland was my first viewing session in nearly nine months. I live in Tampa, not too far from Busch Gardens and it's attendant light displays, and I've been looking for something that will overcome that problem.

So when I go out, I like to get as much out of the experience as possible. I've spent too many hours wondering if I was looking at a galaxy or the Veil or just watching some reflection of the liquid and floaters in my eye. A go-to scope coupled with the BIPH are putting those questions to rest.

I pulled into CAV late, at 8:30, and was set up and ready to observe an hour later, just as Venus was dropping below the treeline.

Over the evening I got to put the BIPH into my 10" LX200, a 22" Dob and Tom Clark's 42" monster.

I managed to let the Ha filter fog up early on in the night so it was useless. The focal reducer was in and out all night, but most of the time it was in.

The BIPH worked as well as could be expected under the poor conditions. It was 80-90% humidity and thin clouds were moving thru on a regular basis. All night, from 10 to about 3:30 there were only a few times and areas of sky that were less than murky.

One of the CAV regulars said that on a 1 to 10 scale seeing was about a 3. Even so, to me it looked like a 11+ compared to home.

The first object up was M1 and despite the poor conditions, it was bright and quite obvious, although we were hoping to see some structure, that wasn't possible.

In my scope I managed a quick glimpse of the Horsehead, but we couldn't find it 10 minutes later in the 42". The Orion Nebula came through clear, and with the focal reducer I had a nearly 2-degree FOV. Everyone who looked at it was impressed, even under the crummy conditions.

At one point, right around when we tried it in the 42" dob, it got so humid that every star in Orion looked nebular with the naked eye. We could get the Orion nebula with the 42", but the Horsehead evaded us with or without the BIPH.

Through the night I saw more galaxies than I'd ever seen, each with a bright core (except the Whale and Spindle of course). I'd guess I hit 20 galaxies at least.

My first view of the Whirlpool revealed definite spiral arm structure. Without the BIPH, I've never seem more than a couple of very faint blobs. That view alone was worth the price to me. Someone else on the field had a Mallincam in a 28" Dob trained on M51 at the same time so I had a chance to compare and confirm that I was seeing the arms in the correct places.

And here is where MMV a lot. I appreciate and love the unenhanced view of objects, but I like the chance to swap back and forth. The BIPH allows me to be certain I'm looking at something and to see structure that I'd otherwise -never- be able to see. Then I can swap it out for a regular eyepiece and spend the time trying to tease those details out with my naked eye. As I said, prior to that night, in 4 years of trying I could be certain that I'd seen maybe 6 galaxies other than Andromeda. That night, I saw well in excess of 20 in about 90 minutes.

Globular clusters were knockouts. Omega Centauri was amazing, M3 & M13 looked better than some textbook images I've seen.

Eye relief - ha! How's 3000mm? Jeannie Clark was looking through a 22" Dob at the Orion Nebula and I could see the view over her head while standing a good 5' back. Then I moved another 5' back & it was still visible, although getting the right focus in my graduated bifocals became a challenge at that distance. At one point I considered getting a bench because two or three people could easily sit and get a fine view all at the same time.

The big problem for the BIPH that night was the scintillation. High, thin clouds were scattering light all over all night.

There was constant and pervasive scintillation that caused a sort of 'rushing into the center' effect that we started calling 'Your Brain on BIPH'. The 'rushing star' effect had a few people humming the Star Trek Theme as soon as they sat down (it was noted that the end of the BIPH strongly resembled the viewing port that Mr. Spock used whenever he was reading scientific information). At times it was not exactly overwhelming, but very distracting, although I learned to ignore it as the night went on.

A few times what looked like faint headlight cones off to the side would pop up; I thought of Doug Baum's problem with the infrared beacon and red lights, but a quick slew in the direction of the effect caused it to go away, slewing back made it pop up again so we figured it was some moisture/cloud related issue.

I got my first look at a Mallincam, and was knocked out by it, but I noticed that the guy who was using it managed to image two or three objects in a couple of hours, or so it seemed. He did have a line most of the night. [Doug, I'm hoping that BIPH v3 will have either a color display, or a 360-degree helmet viewport.] When a fast cold front passed thru, both his scope and the CCD fogged up. I just wrapped a couple of dew strips around the viewing end, cranked up the controller and I was back in business in 15 minutes while the whine of hairdryers kept on for nearly an hour.

Most of my night was spent with one or two other people (I still need to meet you guys in daylight and put a face to the voices) and I managed to go through a long list of objects that had previously eluded me.

I had M51 in view at least three times that night and only on the first of those did I get to see the spirals or any real detail. The other two times it was too murky to see much more than the bright nuclei and a fuzzy but contrasty disk. Mike must have gotten his look during one of the lesser views.

I'm going back to CAV the next two weekends, weather permitting, and hopefully the seeing will be better, I'll keep the Ha filter dry, and I'll get to see a few more things that'll justify the purchase. I'll have my 5-year-old daughter with me this weekend and I have a strong feeling it can keep her attention for more than 3 objects and 45 seconds (the record so far). And that's another thing that will have made it well worthwhile.