Don't mix well.
Last evening after dinner on my back porch, I had a nice pour of a new-to-me bourbon, Old Forrester 1897 "Bottled In Bond". It's 100 proof. I have not made up my mind on it yet, which means I probably will not be buying more, but it is a pleasant bourbon with a small bit of ice to tame the rather alcohol-up-front initial presentation. After that I sat there enjoying the sunset. What a pleasant evening, very dry and very clear.
So, I decided to open up the observatory.
And I brought another pour of the bourbon with me.
After rolling the roof off, uncovering the objective, installing an 8" aperture stop over the 10" LZOS, taking off the eyepiece caps (I leave the CZAS viewer with Denk Power Switch attached) and powering up the mount (all of which took ~5 minutes...I've been timing my self). I dialed up Arcturus, slewed to it, inserted the X-hair eyepiece in one of the viewer's collet and did a careful "recal". I then reinstalled the other Denk 21mm LOA Neutral eyepiece and had a look at "low" power, ~136X. Yup, I'll use the mask for a bit as the lens is cooling a little since I opened the roof after sunset.
I had a sip, sat back and took in the beautiful evening for a spell. Then I slid the power switch to give me ~200x.
Hmm. I had trouble merging the images. Well, sometimes I do so I had another sip, fiddled a little with the eyepieces...and it got worse. Really!?
Looking up at Arcturus, I had a little trouble too. Hmm. Picked up my glass....and dawn broke over Marblehead. I put the glass back down.
Sure enough, the alcohol was subtly messing with my eyes, ever so slightly crossing them. It reminded me a lot of when wearing a tighter hat in the winter time. That pressure on my forehead can shift my eye positions slightly, making merging of the images difficult. The "solution" was the same too, I could slightly push just below my eyelid of either eye to merge the image. But that sucks. So I put the glass off to the side and observed with just one eye.
Sure enough, as the mild bourbon buzz wore off, my ability to merge the images improved, until, about a half an hour later, everything was fine. The scope had settled out thermally too, the seeing became very steady and very clear (I could even see hints of the summer Milky Way), and I could get an excellent airy disk at full aperture. So I enjoyed an exceptionally pleasant night of M objects and double stars (which the LZOS is just superb at).
After buttoning everything up at around 1 AM, I finished the glass.
Anybody else notice similar effects when mixing cocktails/beer/wine with bino-viewing?
Jeff