Mike et al, to your point.. >It makes sense, but I saw more birds at 60x than at 20x. Also again, > more birds with a polarizing filter on the end, this was also easier > on the eyes. So where does that leave us? Well definetly we need much > more thought of optics used and how to assign some type of detection > probability.
I have only limited experience with moonwatching, but can make some comments as an astronomer. Consider a full moon. It shows a contrast to the adjacent background. For all purposes of Moonwatch the surrounding sky is informationless and "black", so an optimum field of view would be such that the moon fills the whole field of view. The moon itself is not really that bright. It is actually quite close to the brightness of green grass in daylight. To alleviate the "large contrast problem", you could be better off if your vision was **not** dark adapted. I would actually observe the moon in conditions were the back yard lights and city light ;-) are on and not switched off. Quite different from standard astro observing in that sense. Because the moon is a celestial body it moves its diameter in 2 minutes with the rest of the sky. This creates a problem as one should really be tracking the moon with a proper setup mount. If a tracking mount is not available then one could obtain a 1 minute nonstop stare if the magnification were such that it covered 2/3 of the diameter of the moon. Then a few seconds for repositioning etc. I would guess that having the telescope still for 1 minute would be better than manually trying to follow it all the time. Regards Harry J Lehto -- NFC-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html --
