Telescope Reviews: Re: Too much FOV

Steve,

You can have your cake and eat it too, if you're willing to pay the price. Here's a review of three top brand wide field 10X50s, the Fujinon has the best edge performance (~ £370).

http://de.geocities.com/holger_merlitz/fujinon10x50.html

The Nikon 10X42 Superior E also has very good edges, and a relatively wide 6* FOV. It can be had for the same price as the Fujinon from US resellers. While 50mm is often considered the minimum aperture for stargazing, the SEs are extraordinarily bright, equal to and even beating many 10X50s. They also have a good close focus for birding.

If you can't afford a premium bin, and those fuzzy edges on your Dekarems bother you, you could make field stops for the EPs to reduce the FOV. John Cota, a CN bino forum member, has done this with his wide field bins and could probably tell you how to make the stops.

OTOH, wide FOV bins with mediocre edges work well for birding and even have their applications for astronomy. Last night, when I was looking for Comet NEAT, I wished I had my old Orion 10X50 Ultraview (6.5*). The edges on the Ultraview start falling off at about 60% out, but the distortion beyond the "sweet spot" wasn't that bad so I could easily make out what I was looking for, then center it.

The Celestron/EO 10X50 ED I used last night only has 5* FOV, but much better edges than the Ultraview. While 5* is sufficient for most binocular astronomy applications (how many binocular sky objects extend beyond 5*?), finding Comet NEAT took more time than it would have in the Ultraviews, particularly since looking for the comet in Monoceros was preposterous -- haze, swollen light dome, and skyglow from sheet lightening from the north. It actually didn't take that long to find because the comet was fairly bright and large, but with smaller objects, a wider FOV would have helped.

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Oscar Zoroaster Diggs
"O.Z."

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