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pocket borg

Discussion in 'Telescopes and Mounts' started by kevan hubbard, Sep 3, 2016.

pocket borg

Started by kevan hubbard on Sep 3, 2016 at 5:31 AM

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  1. kevan hubbard

    kevan hubbard Well-Known Member

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    As a fan of small optics I've come across a small telescope indeed,the pocket Borg,a 25mm telescope designed for travel. Anyone ever used one?the only review I've seen shows a picture of a small white telescope on a camera tripod and the eye piece is bigger than the business end of the scope!the article says that the mini Borg performed well on the moon and planets but showed clusters just as fuzzy blobs. I already have an Opticron monocular 8x25 so have a certain knowledge of what a 25mm objective can do....a lot more than your naked eye!the advantage of the mini Borg is you can tripod mount it and use different eye pieces although I'd imagine that a 25mm lenses won't bear much more than 12x magnification 4x more than the monocular.
     
  2. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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  3. kevan hubbard

    kevan hubbard Well-Known Member

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    That's it and the only one I can find.there's a mini Borg 50mm/45mm too but the pocket Borg is 25mm.the field of view with the pocket Borg would appear to be huge with the 12.5x eye piece.I got it wrong regarding magnification it seems it can go up to about 50x.I'm not sure if refractor telescopes work like prismatic monoculars and binoculars with the exit pupil?I know Galileoian telescopes don't but most modern telescopes don't follow this design. If it where a 25 mm monocular at 50x the exit pupil would be in negative figures!
     
  4. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    I'm not sure. It's a bit of an enigma, it looks cute though. Somehow, I doubt its efficacy as a scope, especially at more than about 15x.
     
  5. kevan hubbard

    kevan hubbard Well-Known Member

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    It seems to be made in Europe and the only retailers are in Copenhagen and Germany, sells for a reasonable price €170,but then you'd need a star diagonal and eye pieces plus a tripod but many astronomy types will already have these.I travel a lot and take my 8x25 Opticron monocular to be honest I've seen a lot using it,things like 47 tucana from the Sydney harbour national park which is surprising dark considering it's proximity to Sydney. What you can see is a trade off with portability I suppose.
     
  6. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    I can't find a retailer in Germany.
     
  7. kevan hubbard

    kevan hubbard Well-Known Member

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    I can't remember but a website in German came up whilst I was looking I suppose it could have been Austrian, Swiss or Liechtenstein! But seem to remember an address in Germany. The Danish one is better anyhow. The article on the pocket Borg suggests that it's poor at 'deep sky'and reported averted vision was needed on things like the double cluster.I took my 8x25 roof prism Opticron monocular out last night. It resolved m34,the double cluster, m39 and a hint of resolvment,word I made up?,with m11 and m29.due to clouds I couldn't test run it on too many bright clusters.in the Opticron the light passes through the objective, 4 prisms(I guess)plus the eye piece,so I'd expect the Borg to be brighter due to less glass transit?
     
  8. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    It would be interesting to try though, but I can understand it not being too good at deep sky.
     
  9. kevan hubbard

    kevan hubbard Well-Known Member

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    Another small telescopic device that I have been interested in is the leica monovid 8x20 monocular but it's very pricey. Nitrogen purged,etc.I have a Zeiss mini quick 5x10 but it's objective is too small for much although things like m45,44,42,31,double cluster and a few others do pop up well but the view is far darker than in my 8x25 Opticron,the difference is far more than the difference between my 10x42 monocular and the 8x25.I find that anything you can see in the 10x42 is also visible in the 8x25 but smaller and fainter with the possible exception of m1.
     
  10. Mak the Night

    Mak the Night Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, I've seen those. A lot of Leica stuff is pricey though.
     

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