Re: Binoculars (?)

Chuck Grant (grant@aretha.llnl.gov)
Thu, 20 Apr 95 02:50:19 -0700

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> Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 22:50:12 -0600 (CST)
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> Chuck,
> I think that your 5 to 7 degree misalignment figure is a little too
> optimistic. In my first binocular viewing experiment, I had my subjects
> view deep space objects [1] monocularly with the preferred eye, and [2]
> binocularly. All viewing was with two different "beam splitter" devices,
> one of them a Tuthill unit and the other an Olympus unit. The various
> viewing sequences were counter balanced in order to avoid a sequential
> preference bias. Two chunks of info resulted; [1] Almost every one of
> the subjects found the binocular view to be more satisfying in that more
> detail could be seen than with the monocular viewing and [2] most of the
> subjects preferred the Olympus unit, even though its smaller prisms passed
> noticably less light than did the Tuthill. The reason given for prefering
> the Olympus was that it was easier to merge the two images than in the
> Tuthill. Please note that in every viewing condition, whatever light
> reached the eye had to pass through the beam splitter with its characteristic
> light loss.
>
> Tom Mote
> Physics Dept.
> St. Mary's Univ.
>

Yeah, it is too optimistic. I based this number on my recollection of an exhibit at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. You look through a binocular like device (1x) and turn a (calibrated) knob which turns a prism and changes the direction which one eye looks. If you start out with a small seperation, it is possible to continue to keep the images fused as you increase the seperation for as wide as 5 to 7 degrees. But it is not possible to fuse the images at such a wide seperation without starting at a smaller seperation. I guess I remembered the biggest number instead of the useful number. Sorry.

Chuck