Binoviewer Review

Last week I was lucky enough to be able to borrow some binoviewers for a weeks use, from James at ScopesNSkies. I was very dubious that a pair of binoviewers could really give me a better view or increased viewing pleasure.

The binoviewers are just like a pair of binoculars that can be attached to the telescope. The main advantage of buying and using a binoviewer is that you can keep both eyes open whilst viewing and it seems as if we are more used to using binoculars than we are at viewing with just one eye.

The major disadvantage of the binoviewers is that you will have to buy two of every eyepiece, so increasing your costs.

On the other hand I can also see that the binoviewers are a brilliant idea if you have group observing sessions, such as when you want to have your family around to have a night observing with them, as I know the viewing will be greatly enhanced by the binoviewers as I am sure most people have used binoculars before and are used to using them.

The eyepieces are held in place by a really nice half turn fixing, and the binoviewers are really well made and also quite heavy, I did find that the heavy weight was sometimes a problem when trying to secure the binoviewers into the diagonal when I wanted a really nice angular viewing angle.

The binoviewers took a while to get used to, as I was under the impression that you could put an eyepiece in and use it to get focus then take out the eyepiece and put it with your other matching eyepiece into the binoviewer and keep focus, but you can’t as the focus point has then changed.

After a while of getting used to them I was amazed at how much extra you could see, or you thought you were seeing! Your field of view is very large when using the binoviewer as you are now using two eyes. The binoviewers are also very comfortable to use with some nice eye relief provided by your eyepieces.

The thing I was most impressed with was that I actually felt that what I was seeing was actually kind of 3D instead of a flat field kind of view you get with a single eyepiece. You do actually become more immersed into what you are looking at as well.

The binoviewers cost around £120, so are not a cheap purchase, although they do come with a set of eyepieces included. I think they are a bit of an extravagance but something that you may find will give you pleasing and improved viewing sessions.