Message posted by lone wolf on July 31, 2004 at 22:44:42 PST:

Well, since nobody wanted to be the bearer of bad news, let me say that no binoculars are really good enough to see the base from Tikaboo. OK, that isn't true since there are some high end astronomical binoculars out there, but at that point, you would probably be better off with a spotting scope or telescope.

Most photographs you see of the operation near Groom Lake from Tikaboo are done at around 2500mm equivalent focal length on a 35mm camera. This is similar to 50x magnification. You are not going to find 50x binocular at any resonable price. However, you can get binoculars that are between 18x to 22x for around $100 [$60 to $140 depending on brand]. Yeah, they are made in China. Even the Pentax binocs are made in China, so the quality isn't all that hot, but it is good enough to snoop on the base. You can pay more and get binocs made in Japan or Germany. The high end binocs have better focusers, which I think is the real drawback to the low end gear. On the Chinese binocs, often the focus goes out if you press too hard against the eyepiece.

Note that the more magnification you get, the dimmer the image. The light intensity falls as the square of the increase in magnification. That is, if you compared 10x30 binocs with 20x30 binoc, the light output would be 1/4 on the 20x binocs, which is indicentally why nobody makes small high magnification binocs. You should look for 60mm to 70mm aperture. That is, look for 18x60, 20x70, etc. These will be heavy, so make sure the binoc are capable of being mounted on a tripod. What I do is put the binocs on a monopod rather than a tripod, because I have the camera set up on the tripod. A cheap $10 Wally-World monopod will do for this purpose, though there is nothing wrong with buying a Bogen if you also plan to use the monopod for photography.

I use Visoneer "primium" binocs, 18x60 I think (there aren't handy). I think they cost $70. You get Bak4 glass in the prisms, which really is a low as you should go. I prefer wide angle eyepieces. Often the number will have WA suffix, such as 18x60WA.

If you have a telescope store where you live, it is pretty easy to see the difference in quality. Look at the edge of a roof with a bright sky behind it (but obviously not looking into the sun). The cheap binocs will show false color at the edge of the roof. Swavorski. Kowa, Takahashi,etc won't have false color, and will cost 10x as much. I think it's better to put the money in a telescope than high end binoculars.

I put a link to a visoneer review. Not to plug them, but to point out the green cast of the glass. I suspect this is a trick to limit the violet and red coming through the binocs, which are the components of the false color. I do the same trick when I take photographs, i.e. I only use the green channel and then convert to black and white. This makes the image a bit sharper.

You can try www.astromart.com for used binocs, though check the new price before you buy used because the discount often isn't all that great.

In Reply to: Tikaboo Gear posted by YeagerBenjamen on July 30, 2004 at 23:30:34 PST:

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