Overview:
Yesterday (2/14/03), I received apogee's new 25X100 binoculars that I ordered on October 22, 2002. When I placed the order I was told that they were back ordered and would not be available until the end of January. Jason Faworski of Apogee was very responsive to my email requests asking about the status of my order over time and was a pleasure to deal with by phone.
I always wanted a pair of 100mm objective binoculars. The high cost of other 100mm binoculars, around $1000, was always the reason keeping me from making the purchase. But when the Apogee binoculars were advertised at $300, about the same cost as one premium eyepiece, it was too good of a bargain to pass up!
I own the Celestron deluxe 12X80 binoculars which perform quite well. I use an oversized wooden parallelogram mount that I built based on plans in a past issue of an astronomy magazine. It is long enough that it can be used while standing up or lying down on a reclining lawn chair. The Celestron Deluxe binoculars have a heavy-duty center support bar with a tripod adapter and the new Apogee Binos do as well, for an easy change out on my existing mount.
I also use a Televue Binoviewer on my 20 inch Starmaster; so two eye observing has spoiled me. Binocular views of large deeps sky objects under dark skies are breathtaking and the large 100mm will have the added advantage of providing bright wide field views for comets.
Binocular Quality:
25 X100mm binoculars for $300? At this price, how much would quality suffer? I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box........this was one QUALITY pair of large astronomy binoculars, not a plastic toy. All metal construction with a chrome finished faceplate which reads:
25X100mm
F.O.V. i.e. 3.5 degrees
BAK 4 Prisms
Multi-Coated Optics
My Celestrons are labeled Fully-Multicoated, and when comparing the reflection of a ceiling light and window off the face of both bonocular's objective lenses, I noted that the reflections were dimmer in the Celestron binos as can be seen below, a sign of better coatings in the Celestron. The Apogee seems to be pretty well baffled inside. Testing under dark skies will tell me how much better the Apogee performs on deep sky objects with its larger diameter objectives despite lesser coatings.
The Apogee has no center focusing knob. Instead, each eyepiece focuses individually by turning the eyepiece. This focus motion was very smooth and worked well in single digit temperatures my first night out. The eyepieces have roll out soft rubber eyeguards. With the eyeguards fully extended and my eyeglasses off, I could not see all edges of the Field Of View (FOV). Even with the eyeguards rolled down, I could only see the whole FOV with my eyeglasses off. This will vary from person to person that wears eyeglasses depending on the bridge of their nose and how far eyeglass lenses are spaced from the eye. I found that the best arrangement was to observe without my eyeglasses and the outer edges of the soft rubber eyeguards rolled out to block stray light from the sides. I am very near-sighted and require a 4.5 diopter correction, but had plenty of focus travel on the binos to achieve focus with my glasses off. I have had problems with this on some other binos. With a 4mm exit pupil, I don't expect any problems with my eye's slight astigmatism.
The binos were in good collimation as shipped, which is important for the higher 25 power, and I had no problem merging images.
On my first night out, the nearly full Moon was nearing Zenith; a real back breaker as I leaned against a cement wall near my house. The Moon , through thin clouds was very bright and sharp. I estimated that just over four Moon diameters would fit in the FOV. this would put the FOV at between 2 and 2.5 degrees. I don't think that the FOV is as large as the 3.5 degrees labeled on the faceplate and as advertised by Apogee, but before I could do more testing, complete cloud cover moved in as another major snow and ice storm approached the Northeast. I did note the false colors of blue and yellow on the limb of the Moon, which was very expected for large fast achromatic optics, but it was subdued and not offensive.
The dew guards on the objectives are metal and about one inch in length. It would be easy to add foam shields or a heat strip for heavier dewing conditions. Objective and eyepiece plastic covers are provided.
The vertical tripod support can be easily adjusted using a hand knob at the top that allows the support to be slid forward and backward on the central support bar. This is similar to the support on my Celestron binos but the Apogee has a larger diameter bar. The binos are heavy, about 9 pounds.
CASE:
A cloth carrying case is provided. Neck straps for both the case and binos are provided. The carrying case is the size of a small backpack and has three plastic grommets on the back for use as a backpack.
I will report here on how well the Apogee performs under the night sky on deep sky objects as soon as the weather allows using my Celestron binos as a comparison. (See Next Part 2 of 2)
Part 2 of 2: First Light Under Dark Skies
On 2/20/03 on a frigid night under moderately light polluted skies from my driveway, I observed with the Apogee 25X100 binos. For a comparison of the views, I also used a pair of 12X80 Celestron Deluxe binos. With the Apogee binos I first focused on the Trapezium in Orion. At 25X, focusing can be difficult while rotating the binocular eyepieces because of vibrations. Here is a photo of the parallelogram mount that I built with the Apogee binos mounted. I had to add some soft weights to counterbalance the 9 pound Apogee binos since I built the bino mount for the lighter 12X80 Celestrons.
The Apogee binos focused well on the Trapezium with a pocket of distinct stars observed. The Celestrons were not able to separate the Trapezium stars at 12X. The view of the Orion Nebula was much better with the Apogees than with the Celestron binos. Aperture does rule....and a doubling in power helps out a lot also. Both the bright and dark nebulosity of M42 were more prominent in the Apogee binos with Orion's full eagle shape visible, including fainter stars. I put the three belt stars of Orion into the FOV and found that all three stars almost fit inside the FOV. With two of the belt stars in the FOV, the third star was found to be located just outside the FOV. Based on this view, I estimated that the FOV of the Apogee binos to be 2.6 degrees and not the 3.5 degrees listed on the bino's faceplate.
Star Sharpness Across the FOV:
I placed a bright star in the center of the FOV and moved it outward to the edge of the FOV to see how well star sharpness was maintained. I found that the Apogee binos kept stars sharp out to about 50 percent of the FOV. At about 75 percent towards the edge of the FOV, the stars began to smear, and by 90 percent out, were quite elongated. As a comparison, I did the same for the 12X80 Celestron Deluxe binos and found a similar star elongation to a slightly less degree. I do most of my deep sky observing with a 20" f/4.5 scope without a paracorr, so I am not used to pinpoint stars to the edge of the FOV, and am not as sensitive to elongated stars near the FOV edge as refractor owners may be.
I observed Saturn and Jupiter with both binos. The Apogee binos gave a nice view of Saturn with its rings visible along with the gap between the rings and Saturn's sphere. This gap was not visible with the lower power Celestrons. False color on Saturn was not objectionable to me. There was a large blue color flare on Jupiter, however, with the Apogee binos. The blue flare masked any view of banding on Jupiter. Jupiter's moons were very bright and sharp. The moons were dimmer and harder to see with the Celestron binos.
Next I observed the M35 and M44 star clusters and the Apogee binos gave better views......larger and brighter. The entire Pleiades was framed within the FOV of the Apogee binos, a stunning sight at this power, with some false blue color on the brightest stars. I observed the Andromeda Galaxy which was getting low in the trees in the West and it appeared much brighter in the Apogee binos. The Apogee binos gave a great view of M1 - Crab Nebula with nearby stars visible while M1 was barely visible in the Celestron binos. I stopped using the Celestron binos since the Apogee binos always gave a better view. I know that this is not a fair comparison because of the difference in aperture and power, but I was concerned that the lower priced Apogee binos might have some limitations, but the only limitation I noticed was more false color on bright stars.
Despite Leo being in the direction of pretty bad sky glow, I was able to observe the Galaxies M65 and M66 as a faint smudge. Galaxies M81 and M82 were very easy and this galaxy pair fit inside the sweet central area of the FOV, and their elongated and round shapes were clearly discernible.
I am looking forward to observing with the Apogee binos under the dark skies of the Cherry Springs Dark Sky Preserve. I consider these large binos to be an excellent bargain at $300. A true comparison would be with similar size and power binos that typically cost around $1,000. I wonder if there would be any improvement in star sharpness or false color and even if there were some improvement, would it be worth the tripling in price?
Gary