Comments on: Really Big Binoculars

By: dan

dan — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:54:44 +0000

First Binocular Light
http://medusa.as.arizona.edu/lbto/firstbinocularlight_press_release.htm

By: hale_bopp

hale_bopp — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 23:09:39 +0000

I have 20×80 binocs and a parallelogram mount. Very easy set up and very impressive views. I think it is the best visual view I have ever had of Andromeda was these things while observing at Apache Point.

Oh, and I know the LBT director, so this was really cool seeing him on television promoting the first light image

Rob

By: P. Edward Murray

P. Edward Murray — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 07:17:03 +0000

Sorry , I meant High School!

By: P. Edward Murray

P. Edward Murray — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 07:14:28 +0000

Phil,

I’m just a bit older than you are and I am just amazed at the technology that we all have today that was not available say when I was in Elementary School in the early 1970′s ..

Pretty large machines that could record video and now are VCR’s that are almost extinct now!

Astronomical CCD’s that you can pick up for $150 and webcams that cost less that can give you great photos of the Moon that didn’t exist back then!

And these are “consumer” electronics that anyone can buy today…virtually unthinkable in the “60′s!

I can only guess at what amateurs might be able to do in 100 years!

By: Evolving Squid

Evolving Squid — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 03:17:41 +0000

I use these 25×100 and a set of 11×80 for which I don’t have the brand name handy (i.e. I’m too lazy to go look ) For both I have sturdy tripods that can raise them to almost 7 feet, which is good because there is a limitation of many optical mountings that is not well documented:

They’re designed for people much shorter than 6’3″

I don’t know how the stargazing is on nice, big, professional telescopes, but the amount of bending down I have to do to see through my telescope does limit my viewing time – hence the binos, which I can use standing up on the tall tripods, have a big advantage. If there’s anyone who has overcome this particular limitation for a celestron 8″ scope, please let me know

By: TJ

TJ — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 22:44:11 +0000

How inspiring! I went to a star party back in the late 80s at the top of Mt. Pinos in California. Nice clear night, everyone with their red lens-covered flashlight and telescopes for days! I went to these star parties as often as I could, and was alwyas impressed with the equipment, tracking software, etc. that these ‘amateur’ astronomers had and used.

The best view of Saturn I’d ever had though was through a pair of large binoculars. The binocs were not too common at these events, but this set was large, probably 10 or 11 cm outer lens. They were on a stand, of course! I stepped up, skeptical (go figure) at first since I know nothing about optics, then looked through thelarge binoculars. BANG! There was Saturn in all its ringed glory. Spectacular. Since then, I have never looked at binoculars the same way again…

By: Astroprof

Astroprof — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 22:35:41 +0000

Personally, I rather like 10×50 binoculars. Much bigger gets too tiring to hold steady, and much more magnification is almost impossible to hold steady enough. We’ve got some 30×80 binoculars, but they require a mount. Anything that requires setup tends to discourage use.

By: L. Fuller

L. Fuller — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 17:50:40 +0000

For the last couple of years, I have lived in an area where I can see the LBT from my front yard (I hold a degree in geology from the University of Arizona so feel especially proud of this ‘scope). I have tried, off and on, to explain the significance of this observatory to my co-workers… especially when we were so close to losing it to a forest fire last year… but with images like this one and those that will come out of the observatory in the near future… well, what can I say, the project speaks for itself!

By: Evolving Squid

Evolving Squid — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 17:01:10 +0000

On a lighter note, we need to come up with more creative names than overwhelmingly large telescope

I’d bet a pound of macadmia nuts that, at some point – perhaps only in a meeting somewhere, the telescope was to be named “Binocular Large Telescope”, but the name was changed because of the abbreviation

By: F. Mozel

F. Mozel — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 16:52:49 +0000

Another project I’ve heard of is the Magdalena Ridge Observatory http://www.mro.nmt.edu. It will have a 400m optical interferometer made up of 10 1.4m telescopes. Really cool stuff.

By: Samara

Samara — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 15:51:58 +0000

On a lighter note, we need to come up with more creative names than overwhelmingly large telescope

By: Samara

Samara — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 15:50:07 +0000

Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster

Any update on when the second mirror will come up? If that was just one mirror…WOAH

On the planet front, will it just be able to see large gas planets (like Jupiter) or will it be possible to see small rocky bodies (like Earth)

By: dude

dude — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 13:57:56 +0000

Cool!

By: Kim

Kim — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 13:50:48 +0000

I never understand why NGC 891 isn’t a Messier object. I was at the Grand Canyon doing a little observing once and 891 was a pretty obvious naked-eye object. (Along with just about everything else you might want to look at, actually.)

I’d be interested in whether we could use the LBT to obtain parallax measurements on a Cepheid variable or other standard candle and tighten up some of the baseline distance measurements.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 13:30:28 +0000

Maybe that would be able to finally put to rest the “we never went to the Moon” lunatics (ha ha- pipe dream, I know).

By: mickal555

mickal555 — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 12:27:56 +0000

oooooo

cool

I want one…

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!!

By: Evolving Squid

Evolving Squid — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 12:23:02 +0000

I have a pair of 80mm binos and a pair of 100mm binos. I use them quite a bit more than my telescope actually – easier to transport, easier to use, and you can see things that are hard to comprehend in a telescope due to the wider field of view. I also find binos are a great way to introduce other people to astronomy.

I am really looking forward to seeing the types of images that will come from the completed/fully operational LBT.

By: Thomas Siefert

Thomas Siefert — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 08:47:11 +0000

I think the first rule of government make sense. Building only one is going to be twice the price anyway.

Building a telescope off the planet is gonna 100 times (my estimate) the price, so research into ground based telescopes make more sense to me.

By: Blake Stacey

Blake Stacey — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 08:34:21 +0000

Like, no way! Like, way!

I was thinking that Olympus Mons would probably be about the best place in the Inner Solar System to do astronomy. You’ve got air so thin it’s practically vacuum, but you’re on a planet that provides more useful materials than the Moon. (And even if we terraformed the place, a mountaintop **that** high would still be better than Chile!) Let’s see, I heard Zubrin give some numbers in the 5e10 – 1e11 dollar range for a Mars expedition. On top of that, the cost of an OWL would be a rounding error.

“First rule of government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?” –S. R. Hadden

By: dark_matter

dark_matter — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 06:55:14 +0000

Thats awfully cool.

And the 100m OWL would be….well, I don’t think I have the words.

Personally, I think we should stick a 100m on the MOON. That would make for some interesting observations…