Revelation 15x70 (1 Viewer)

These 15x70 binoculars are remarkably low cost at £49 each.
Telescope House claim to check them for collimation, but you should ask them to do this anyway.
They actually have an effective aperture of about 63mm I think.

They do have quality, robustness and collimation issues, but when they work they give fine views.

Their Explore Scientific 120 deg eyepieces have come down from £983 to £790.
I doubt whether one could use two side by side.

I wonder if anyone will produce a 130 deg eyepiece?

They do look great value Binastro, myself, my neck is very stiff now so I struggle with straight EPs on big binoculars, otherwise would be tempted.

Binastro said:

Their Explore Scientific 120 deg eyepieces have come down from £983 to £790.
I doubt whether one could use two side by side.

Click to expand...

So do I, the 9mm 120 deg has a diameter of 79mm according to their datasheet:

http://www.explorescientific.de/out/media/60c0d17b977e95510e4083bf2bd8b7a3.pdf

Some of their shorter 82 deg EPs sound like they could work on a bino.
I think that more AFOV than that is not needed for binoviewing - with my 9mm 100 deg I have to move my head quite a bit to see the field stop - no chance for this in a bino setup.

Joachim

I have a 100 degree eyepiece also and don't like it. I cancelled my pre-order for a 110 deg similar.
I much prefer 82 or 84 deg Naglers or Meades.

I have a discounted 90 deg eyepiece, which is O.K.

The 120 deg eyepiece has 12 elements, maybe a Koehler?

Have there been any wider designs?

The 120 degree eyepiece if it wasn't so physically wide would make say a 10x25 12 deg field? or 20x50 6 deg field? binocular weighing several kilos.
Either their specs, are wrong regarding weight or field stop or something is odd.

The data sheet seems accurate, unlike the adverts.
The 30mm 100 deg eyepiece sounds fun at 2250g each.
3 inch barrel.

My 1940s Kodak 38mm approx hard coated eyepiece is fitted in a 3 inch barrel, about 76 deg field.
It gives 16x in a 5 inch short focus Jaeger refractor. Some of these large Kodak eyepieces were thorium glass, mine not.
I also used a similar age Barr and Stroud Scottish 3/4 inch 6 glass uncoated eyepiece that gives good views, but not so bright. 35x in 5 inch refractor 2 deg field. (I always listed it as 35x, but it was actually about 33.5x).

Those binoculars have been around for maybe 15 years now, but that's a record low price. I tried one, from an American boutique (=$250) importer, and found them basically as you describe. Many minor quality nitpicks basically irrelevant to the view but annoying nonetheless, good coatings, 63mm effective from the exit pupil diameter. This was in my perfection obsessed youth, and I sent it back, choosing instead the big Fujinon 16x70 for a time, but it wasn't that precisely adjusted, or the exit pupil was too big for my eyes, or something, keeping me from seeing stars as sharply as I should have. At last I got a $1000 Docter 15x60, which is optically good and at least doesn't annoy me. My logic is not very clear, is it? Certainly not to me! Knowing what I know now, I would have stopped with the well colimated Chinese made 15x"70", ha! I remember Cor Caroli looked beautiful through it.

Ron

Hi Binastro,

I would not say I don't like the 9mm 100 deg - it's not bad but I don't use the huge AFOV unless I do funny things behind the scope and it also has quite some color that far off axis. I got it used & rather cheaply, so I won't complain.
But I now know that Nagler or other 80 deg EPs are probably the sweet spot for me - haven't tried 90 deg ones yet.

Joachim

The beauty of the cheap Chinese 15x70 Revelation is the modest weight, partly due to its cheapness.
This meant I could hand hold it rather easily.
Some of them had multicoated prisms, some didn't have coated prisms, The importers certainly didn't know which were which, or at least claimed not to. Maybe the Chinese factory just delivered anything.

The Quantum 15x70 is better, but heavier and I need a tripod.