A binoscope 'are' in essence two telescopes that are jointed in such a manner that you look with each eye through a separate telescope. Experienced observers claim that observing with a binoscope is superior to observing with a traditional 'mono'-telescope that has a comparably large, but single big mirror. After watching through the binoscope shown below somebody commented "that the binodobson had surpassed by far his wildest expectations". (Cited from Cloudy Nights). Impressions of what you actually can see with a large binoscope can be read in the section The WOW Factor.
But why would observing with a binoscope be superior? This topic is addressed in the section Why a Binoscope. It is also discussed in more details in two articles I have published in modified form in Amateur Astronomy Magazine (Binocular Summation Factor). These articles address different scientific aspects of binocular vision. They also report measurements that directly compare a binoscope with a mono-mirrored Dobsonian telescope. One main conclusion of these articles is that when observing extended objects with a binoscope, one can actually see MORE details and contrast, and in fainter objects than can be expected by simply adding up the surface areas of the two mirrors. Since a binoscope involves two telescopes that produce two independent images which have to be joint together, this asks for a somewhat different approach of collimation etc. These aspects are discussed under the header Merging of the Images and are also published as article in Amateur Astronomy Magazine.
|
