Quote:

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If you increase the aperture too much without increasing magnification, you increase exit pupil and you will
brighten the entire image and you may get a washed out image.

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But you'll still see no less, right?

The simple way to test this is to just compare what you can see with a masked-off binoc vs. with it operating at full aperture. Will you see more contrast, stars, or more of anything with the binoc masked down? Will a 10x70 see any less than an similar 10x50? I'm skeptical but willing to be proven wrong.

The only test I've done like that was a few years ago with 7x50 binocs from my yard at the edge of the suburbs. From what I remember, I always saw more stars, more everything at higher aperture, same magnification...even despite the 'dreaded' 7mm exit pupil.

The only detriment of the larger aperture (and exit pupil) I can think of is that it'll show defects (esp. astigmatism) in the viewer's eyes more, which could/would have consequenses. But we seem to be talking about contrast here.

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Patrick

8" f/6 NewStar dobsonian
Orion Starblast 4.5" f/4 mini dobsonian
42mm SuperView, 17mm Nagler T4, some other cheapies
Omcon 7x50, Oberwerk 11x56, Olympus DPS-R 7x35, Olympus Magellan 8x25
homemade 50mm right-angle bino-scope prototype

Edited by patter1 (12/07/05 09:57 AM)

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