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Did your screen timeout while using it? If it did, it loses alignment and you have to realign. Every time. When I use it, I set the screen timeout to several minutes.

Happy to help. Thank you for watching. Clear skies!

That's pretty cool - I'm always impressed by mechanical improvements (like in old watches).

I didn't know he had a TV series.

Gracias por el comentario. Me alegra saber que los binoviewers te están funcionando bien.

Happy to help. Good luck with your next project!

Great question. Vantablack, despite being quite famous, isn't a paint. It uses a very complicated and expensive "vapor deposition process" that is only available in the UK and even then, is only available to military, research institutions and ONE guy - some artist that has a license to use it. They supposedly did produce a black paint, but it's nowhere near as good as Mousou or Black 4.

@@reflactor mousou is available on amazon.thanks for the reply,Ive just purchased for my 40th birthday a 130mm telescope second hand and not sure where to start.i want to be able to see the 5 planets alignment on 28aug.(27 being my birthday). hopefully I'll learn how to use it and set it up in time.

Thank you for watching. Clear skies!

I'll have to leave that question up to the developer. I use it to find objects and it's fairly accurate for me, but I'm not doing anything very technically advanced.

I was never a fan of the telescoping strut Dobsonians, but that would be a super simple fix to the backfocus problem. I'm trying to sell the cheaper binoviewers to help buy the Explore Scientific binoviewers. Fingers crossed!

I'll have to test that, but all of the correctors and barlows that came with the binoviewers had proprietary threads that wouldn't screw into the standard eyepiece threads. The 2X did, but that's because it came from a third party Barlow adapter.

I no longer own that telescope, but I did write a very custom "Ownership Manual" document for it. Email me and I'll send you the document. Generally speaking, here are the initialization steps: INITIALIZATION: 1) With the power off, point the telescope at the north star (Polaris) 2) Slowly push the nose down so it is horizontal. This is the “Home” position. 3) Turn the power on 4) Go through the basic input setup. As of today (Dec 2), the answer to TimeZone is -6 and the answer to DayLightSavings is NO. 5) When it asks to do an alignment, select YES and do the Two-Star Alignment (don’t do Brightest Star) 6) Choose a star in the southeast sky and one in the southwest (or west) 7) When done aligning, it will state a Caution about using an NPE correction. Push Enter and then push Escape a few times to get to the root menu. 8) After this, you’re off to the races. Note: If it still fails, then the primary culprit is a loose encoder. They are held to the main shafts via set screws, and those do come loose. You can test this by checking the raw angle readouts from Azimuth and Altitude angles.

That's a good question. The answer is I don't know. The light pollution here is so bad (Bortle 8) these days that I'm limited to mostly planets and the Moon. M13 used to look amazing about three years ago, but it's relatively hard to see now.

I look forward to using this on DSO's, but I'll have to wait until I go to a dark site. Here in DFW, the light pollution went from Bortle 7 to Bortle 8 over the span of about 3 years. I really can't find any DSO's worth seeing. M13 used to look amazing, but now it's just okay.

Absolutely. I can barely see Polaris, let alone any other stars in the Little Dipper. We're in a Bortle 8 sky.

Thank you! If you get a chance, please leave a review for the Red Hope novel series. They need all the help they can get. :)

The first set I bought was the used William Optics which didn't work on any of my telescopes. Very frustrating. I made this video to help anybody who was at that level of frustration that I had been at. Hopefully, it saves people time and money. On my cheap pair of binos, I ran into the same issue of sometimes not getting images to merge. That's when I realized that the two focal tubes were out of alignment (cyclical). I had to rotate one and suddenly every 360 degrees it would be in alignment (but slightly out of focus).

@@reflactor I hear you I don’t think I wanna buy a third pair to figure out. It doesn’t work with my eyes considering the second pair I bought was a brand new unit as well but yeah that’s what trial and errors is.

For the most part, yes. In the city skies where I am, I get to see Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Orion Nebula, Ring Nebula and a small white blur called the Andromeda Galaxy, and that is no matter what the size of the telescope. The secret isn't telescope size, but the darkness of your sky. A "small" 8 inch Dobsonian will blow your mind in a Bortle 2 dark sky. The fancy small electronic telescopes are impressive, especially since they can track and do photographic stacking all by themselves. For my big manual Dobs, I record video using my phone (in ProVideo mode) and then do stacking later that evening using PIPP, and AutoStakkert.

@@reflactor thanks for your reply and sharing your insight. This is very helpful. I think based on your feedback I will seek out an 8" Dob like the Orion XT8 without any complicated drive gear, and just use it when nights are dark and I can share some of the astronomy objects like you listed above with others. Thanks again.

Thank you for the feedback. Clear skies!

Sounds like we had the same experience. The 2X solves the problem, but then you're WAY zoomed in. Omegon, Orion, and Explore Scientiic all make clones of that parfocal binoviewer, so keep your eyes open on the used markets (or retail if they go on sale).

Hahaha, it's amazing how the temperature can change over a distance of like 10 miles? Stay cool!

That's unfortunate. In theory, you could shorten it, but that would be a lot of risky work. I would be too afraid of such a modification.

@@reflactor yeah, relocating the finder mount would be the hard part. Cutting the tube would be fairly easy. Then just 3 screws for the focuser assembly.

Easy - perhaps a little difference in eyes positioning over eyepieces (or little misalignment inside binoviewer) + pincushion aberration of eyepieces make this 3D effect

@@A0111. Yeah, still weird though. Because our brains are wired to interpret stereoscopic view as 3D, but that's based in parallax between both eyes. Bino viewers don't have parallax though. Pincushion aberration is not the same. And I wouldn't dismiss it as merely placebo effect (which actually seems to have measurable real-world effects, despite it being "just between the ears"') or the "audiophile effect" where one would detect an improvement in their experience because otherwise their expense would turn out to be pointless in retrospect. Honestly, I'd expect this effect to be more pronounced with binoculars, as those actually have two separate light paths. Never noticed any "3D effect" with binoculars though.

@@EvenTheDogAgrees it's basically a fake parallax that made by inperfect optics. I have a pair of cheap glasses which produce a barely noticeable 3d effect e.g. when I read a book - lines of text look slightly bulged.

I think you're onto something - our brains want to see in 3D if we're using both eyes. You can definitely perceive more detail with both eyes.

The Denkmeier's fall into a level far above the Reflactor budget, lol. I've heard great things about them!

Thanks for watching!

I've shown the binoviewers to a few people who couldn't get the images to line up, so you're not alone in that regard.

The purple makes since - I think that means they are the "fully coated optics", right? Not sure why one of mine is yellow. I love the goldline eyepieces!

That is a good point. I have some SVBony's that have a Barlow on their front end.

I have a generic set that work fine with my mak.they will work on my refractors only if I use the Barlow's.dont work on my dobs at all.they came with 2x 30mm eyepieces.tried other eyepieces but can reach focus.clear skies Vic 🫡

Thank you, this is good to know!

I'm jealous of your Bortle 6 sky! Here in the big city, we're at a Bortle 8, so it's hard to see any DSO's.

@@reflactor Light pollution map puts me in red area, but I can still slightly see Milky Way on some good nights. The O-III filter still makes many things possible for me. Bortle 8 probably lets you to see some DSO's, but I can imagine it's no fun to look at them being heavily washed out. Also no chance to get full night adaptation of eyes.

I was actually "Balsa", lol. I thought that would be a funny medal for them to earn, but after a while realized it wasn't quite as funny. So I blurred it and the realized that was even better, lol.

Sounds like an interesting project - let me know if you get them collimated!

The parfocal binos that I borrowed from Explore Scientific are part of their outreach program, so I had to get them back as soon as I was done. They told me that they are good for low magnification but I used them on the planets too and they worked fine for me (with 8mm Plossl eyepieces).

Thanks! They do make the Moon exciting again. Clear skies!

@@reflactor We like the Moon! Yeah, I know you're old enough to get that reference. 😂

Thank YOU for watching. Hope the information helps.

I'm hoping that with the addition of the milk jug washers, the torques will be so low that my loktite will work, but you may be right in the long run.

Purple is more of a thread sealant than locking compound and is much easier to remove without danger of breaking stuff. I have a 50ml bottle of 222 that gets used way more than red or blue

Thank you for this tip! Clear skies! :)

Let me know how it goes. I've found it very helpful for teaching me the basics of where things are located in the night sky.

Thanks! I've tinkered with Mousou black paint before, but only on very small applications (because as you say it is somewhat fragile).

Happy to share. Clear skies!

I've probably accidentally hit a mirror or two in the past. Fortunately, without any damage.

@@reflactor I ruined my first 8inch reflector while screwing the clamps back on and let my screwdriver jump hitting the mirror. It caused the outer half of the image blurry and the inner half clear. Ended up getting a GSO to replace it.

Thanks for watching! Stellarvue makes legendary telescopes - they solved the nearly impossible task of eliminating chromatic aberration from short refractors. It's like magic. Of course, they are way out of my league pricewise.

Thank you for that information. It's a very sad time in the telescope world.

I honestly don't know the magnitude limit. The mirror, despite looking very good, does have some degradation near the outer 25%, so I suspect that will reduce the magnitude limit. The secondary mirror is about 2.1 inches by 3 inches. I usually don't put castors on telescopes that are excessively heavy (this one is). Plus, the ground base is quite small. I think the new Telekits have bigger round bases.

Unfortunately, my workshop is bursting at the seams, so I will likely have to pass it on to a new owner.

I'm finding it harder and harder to find wrecked telescopes. I think that's a good thing for the hobby overall!