Re: Binoculars (?)
CSTOM@stmarytx.edu
Wed, 19 Apr 1995 08:16:10 -0600 (CST)
Steve,
A number of years ago, I did some research in this area. Briefly,
I found a small, but statistically significant, improvement in the visual
signal to noise capabilities of two eyes versus one eye. This took into
account the loss of light that was introduced by the beam spliter optics
that I used. The signal to noise improvement was probably not enough to
be worth the effort to those of you with "young" eyes but, to us senior
citizens, it was.... I performed the experiment both in the lab and under
dark sky conditions at the Texas Star Party. The improvement in signal to
noise would be even better in the "twin scope", ie true binoculars, system
where there would not be any beam spliter light loss. There is, however,
no stereo vision, although when you look at something like the moon, the
effect is quite starling.
Tom Mote
Physics Dept.
St. Mary's Univ.