Telescope Reviews: Pleiades in the Pleiades (Pleiades² ?)

Hi everyone, I guess this is the best place to put this

The following are/is, literally, my first impressions and first-light of my new, to me, Miyauchi Bs-60iA 22×60 “Pleiades 60” Space Binocular. That and my very first “official/documented” observing report mixed in….LOL.

These particular binoculars seem to be somewhat of a rarity, at least here in the US. I actually couldn’t find much about them, on almost any English-language website. No reviews anywhere; CN, Excelsis, A-mart, etc. The only two places I was able to find any reasonable amount of info on them was on www.bigbinoculars.com, and www.monkoptics.co.uk. Some specifications from these two sites, and what is actually written on the binos themselves(as they don’t come with any manual or documentation, as per the previous owner who said he bought them new from a retailer) are:

Aperture:---------------------60mm
Objective type:---------------Achromat Fully Multi-Coated
Focal length:------------------300mm
Focal ratio:-------------------f/5
Eyepieces:--------------------45° angled
Magnification:-----------------22×
Eye relief:--------------------14mm(as per bb.com, 18mm as per mo.co.uk)“feels” like ~14 to me.
Field of View(FoV):------------- ~3.0° (says 3° on unit itself)
Exit Pupil:----------------------~2.7mm
Weight:------------------------~2 kg/4.4lb
Minimum focus:-----------------~16m/52.5’
Prisms:--------------------------Bak-4
Focus:---------------------------Individual eyepiece
Diopter range:--------------------(-10 to +10)
Fully Multi-coated:---------------Yes
Built in lens hoods:---------------Yes(retractable)
Built in tripod adapter:------------Yes
Waterproof:----------------------Yes

This morning(09/03/05), I awoke around 04:30 A.M.(EDST(USA)). I was fortunate to have taken a lengthy nap the afternoon before, and went to sleep around 11:00PM after watching “NUMB3RS”. I woke up rested and unable to fall back asleep. I quietly slid outta bed, and took a look outside. Nice clear skies, good transparency, but a bit breezy. I look up towards zenith, hey, is that the “God-O-War”? I haven’t had an opportunity to see him since 2003. After setting up the Pleiades 22×60’s and my observing chair/stool, I went and made a small donation to another very important deity, the porcelain one, so it would bless me with at least an hour of undisturbed viewing time, as it was a bit chilly out and I was only wearing my T-shirt and boxer-briefs.

I looked first at mars, as it was beckoning me, but the image of it was teeny-tiny and not very detailed or impressive. Looking at it naked eye, I thought I detected a bit of twinkling, but thought it may also be my bleary eyes. I then proceeded to look around the southern and western sky, as that’s pretty much all I can see from my location; from zenith to about due-west, all the way around to about due-south, so only about ¼ (SW-quadrant) of the entire sky.

While poking around aimlessly, I realized that the measly 3×12 finder, much to my doubts, is actually quite functional, even in my heavily light-polluted, pre-dawn, NYC skies. I also realized, unfortunately, that due to my curtailed viewing time the last few years, I am woefully unfamiliar with the area of sky stretching between the area of the “Summer Triangle” & Delphinus, all the way to Taurus and the Pleiades, probably since there really isn‘t much that can be seen well, in that area of sky, in my skies, with my equipment. I went in and got my red light and a planisphere, but it ended up being of little help, as I couldn’t recognize anything when actually looking at the sky, naked eye, or with 8×42‘s. I do, however, think I might have actually seen the Andromeda galaxy(M31) naked eye, a first to say the least, not certain though, it was about 45° down from zenith, slightly towards NW, peaking from behind the corner of my roof-top. Definitely a smudge with my 8×42’s, and same with the 22×60’s.

Mars kept beckoning me from high above, so I heeded his enticing calls and went inside and dragged out the Megrez 80 II ED on a UA microstar. Popped in a 24mm panoptic, tiny orange ball, kinda like a brightly lit BB on the other side of the room, 15mm panoptic, still a BB, 9mm-T6, blurry BB with allotta scatter/glow around it, I don’t think it was CA as I didn‘t see any on Saturn or Jupiter earlier this year, just atmospheric scatter. Tried a 5mm-T6, slightly bigger BB, even blurrier and more scatter/glow, must be atmospheric scatter, I guess seeing is not so great today?...LOL. Oh well, foiled again. Back to the Miyauchis'.

I noticed something other than a point of light peeking out from the corner of my neighbor's roof-top just SW of zenith,...reached for the 8×42’s,...COOL!!!, the Pleiades cluster, have to wait a few minutes for it to completely clear the roof, kinda wound up about it now, as I haven‘t seen it since last fall/winter. Swept around some more at or around zenith, saw a few satellites merrily drifting along, tracked a few, but not much to see, just a relatively dim point of light moving slowly in a straight line. Saw a few short-lived brightish streaks/flashes, guess some meteorites or possibly iridium(sp?) flares(?).

Ah!!!!!!!, the Pleiades are now clear of the roof, beautiful through the 8×42’s, then the Megrez + 24 pano, nice but not framed well, the sisters and mom and pop just barely squeezed into the FoV. Moved the scope and grabbed the 22×60’s,....WOW!!!...., what a sight to behold!!! I see now why these binos were named “Pleiades”, it’s like they were made for that one object exclusively. Framed perfectly, just enough of the peripheral stars and sky to keep one entranced for hours. I ended up just viewing the Pleiades for the rest of the morning, probably over an hour. The view was as good as any picture of this cluster I’ve ever seen, minus any nebulosity of course. I was completely mesmerized, awestruck even. If I could only use these binos to view this one object forever, it is definitely worth the price of admission for these binos.

I decided to pan around the cluster to get a feel for how things looked at the edges, and I’d have to say that, to my eyes, I could see no change to any of the star shapes or colors, even when being truncated by the field-stop. Top, bottom, left, right, stars appeared unchanged at the edge, same as they look in the center of the FoV. I’ve done this with most of my scopes, and going from memory, but when using my SV102V Apo, when panning the brighter stars of the Pleiades to the edge while using an ep like the Antares W70 25mm, stars looked blurry, slightly bloated, discolored, and/or maybe a bit comet shaped, after switching to a 24mm panoptic, stars were now pinpoint almost to the "almost" very-very edge, but when placed to have the field-stop truncate the star, I still noticed some misshaping, maybe some lateral color or other color changes, and tiny amount of flare, to the stars, but nothing at all I would normally complain about. But with the Miyauchis’, stars at the field-stop looked the same as the central FoV, except cut in half or so. This may probably be attributed to the relatively low power, only 22×, and there is obviously a significant step-up in quality from the likes of the common 15×70’s I own, in which, and even in my pretty decent 8×42’s, star shapes change at the edges, probably in the entire outer 15-20% of the FoV.

I ended up viewing the Pleiades until about 06:11A.M.(EDST(USA)), well after sunrise here. It was interesting watching stars throughout the cluster disappear from view as the sky brightened, and eventually it was just mom and pop and the sisters, along with a couple of straglers, left at the party. It was particularly neat to see the stars in the “rat-tail”, as I call it, leading from Alcyone down to the SE, disappear one by one. I guess it could be likened to the experiences of folks who watch grass grow…LOL.

I can’t wait to try these on the moon, I suppose that will be a better test of chromatic aberration and edge-performance. I have no real intentions of using these terrestrially, as most of my terrestrial viewing involves targets/objects/creatures at considerably varying distances, as well as some being quite mobile, therefore center-focus-hand-holdable units would be/are my preference.

Disclaimer: I admit I am no optical guru, nor observational master able to visually tell the difference between 1/8 & 1/9 wave of under or over correction of spherical error, and my observations and impressions of these binoculars are wholly subjective, and wholly my own, but hopefully someone finds my impressions, and first light, entertaining or maybe even helpful.

Also I have no disclosed or undisclosed association with any of the vendors or manufacturers mentioned, other than being a satisfied customer of this/their product, and/or their service.

Thanks for trudging through all this,

P.S.: I actually have several pictures but couldn't figure out how to add them to this post, and gave up after about an hour of trying(I'm not a computer guru either...LOL). I don't have a web-site, web-server, or web-page as noted in the CN FAQ(How to add an image...?). I guess I'm outta luck, huh?

--------------------
Joe,

C8 OTA on UA Unistar Heavy Deluxe
SV-102V on same UA Unistar Heavy Deluxe(not at the same time)
WO-Megrez 80-II ED on UA Microstar Basic
Orion 80ED on same UA Microstar Basic(also not at the same time)

Miyauchi Bs-60ic "Pleiades" 22X60
Orion UltraView 10X50's
Orion MiniGiants 12X63 & 15X63