The Moon through binoculars
December 24, 2009 by
Filed under Binoculars Ratings
The Vixen 12×80 are a big binoculars very useful for doing Astronomy. Watching the Moon through them provides great satisfaction. This video was taken on 8th February of 2009. Music by myself, in order to avoid copyright problems. Firstly we observe the original video taken directly through a pocket digital camera, Casio Exilim EX-Z80 recording at 640×480. The image is constantly moving, because it is hold by hand. Next video shows the same frames but applying a digital correction to remove …
With a 30×80 Jupiter and its satellites would be much more impressive, but maybe not enough to see atmospheric details over the surface of Jupiter.
And, yes, M31 is Andromeda galaxy and M42 is Orion Nebula. They both can be visible with naked eye under a dark sky. To find them, you should learn firstly Andromeda and Orion constellations. And a map would be also very useful. You may use freely the maps available at Wikipedia when searching for Orion and Andromeda constellations.
I am a total newbie to astronomy. I used to have a 5 inch reflector, but I could never align it. Anyway, I opt for binoculars now. I can see the Jupiter with 3-4 Moons very well through 10×50s mounted on the tripod. In fact, the Jupiter shines very bright. But, I have no idea how to find the Andromeda and Orion. I believe that’s what you mean by M31 and M42.
30×80 would be good for the Moon but not enough for planets. In order to see planets (Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) properly it is needed 100x magnifying power.
I got the 12×80 to explore deep sky under dark nights: clusters, nebulae and galaxies. M31 and M42 are outstanding through the 12×80 binoculars.
I was thinking about getting the Vixen 30×80 for planet viewing, but they never have them in stock to try around. I believe the 20×80 would be perfect giving 4mm exit pupil, but I already have similarly sized binos. Why did you opt for the 12×80? Becasue of the brightness?
Yes, that Tycho is really impressive, even more when seen through binoculars.
The Tycho crater makes the moon look like a watermellon. The streaks for that crater are so pronounced, onto a major portion of the entire Moon.
My Vixen 12×80 shows chromatic aberration when viewing the limb of the Moon. It is a blue fringe.
I have a Fujinon FMT-SX 16×70 as well as the 12×60 HB. Both show obvious yellow fringe around the Moon. Is that normal for high aperture binoculars? Or are both of my units poor quality? I mean, that’s such an obvious chromatic aberation
I picked it up for $89 canadian dollars which I guess works out to lik $70 US or something.
hoow muchdid u pay?
Congratulations. Good work and idea.
I just picked up a pair of Celestron 15X70 `s too and I built a monopod out of an adjustable rod. The rod is two-piece hollow tube and adjusts to length by twisting it. It is similar to a shower curtain rod but thicker walled. I utilized the movable foot on the end by putting a small 1/4 inch bolt in it to attach a binocular tripod adapter. It works great and is more maneuverable than a tripod. The rod was like 10 bucks at Princess Auto.
You may build your homemade adapter. Using the tripod thread of the camera: employing a British Standard Whitworth (BSW) screw 1/4 inch you may hold the camera fixed to a metal or wood. Then, the metal is fixed to the focuser through a bolted coupling (I am not sure this is the name of that element). The connection is quite ackwark, but it works.
I’m trying to figure a way to mount my Logitech 9000pro to the eye piece of the binocular. The bad thing about my binoculars is that it doesnt have a tripod mount thats as sturdy as could be. Many are making their own. I have not tried it yet with a tripod yet to see how bad it would be.
Yes, sure. The problem here is that digicam was recording in handheld configuration. Now that I have an adapter this issue is solved.
It was pretty awesome. I could see the creaters and quite a lot of detail, but the toughest thing was just holding it steady. I think it would definitely need a tripod.
Point it to the Moon and tell me what you see …
Yes, under dark skies, far from the cities.
I just picked up the celestron 15×70 and I like it a lot. Not sure how it would compare but at the price I paid, its very good.
can u see milky way with that?
Thanks. Good idea … let me think about it …
nice music… you should do some scy-fi video with it.
Thanks a lot. Nevertheless focus could be improved.
The quality of the moon in this video is awesome 5 stars from me, keep making videos:)
Yes, these binoculars are very good in optical quality, but a bit expensive. You may find 20×80 cheap binoculars from other brands, like Zhumell for only 75 US$, but I don´t know about their quality …