After long discussions with one of my friends, I was finally convinced that a cheap telescope was not the way to get started in astronomy. Instead, a good pair of binoculars will help you learn the sky while still being able to see some great sights, and they can be used for terrestrial viewing as well!

The Model

	Click to Enlarge Saxon 11x70

These binoculars from Splendour Trading (via Kirks Camera House) were my first astronomy related purchase, costing about AU$220.

They are Saxon 11x70 large-aperture binoculars, well suited to star gazing with the big lenses and good magnification.

The purchase was not without its hiccups.. The first time I received them via courier, I took them out of the box and one of the front lenses was rattling around and consequently the image could not be focussed. I contacted Splendour Trading who arranged a courier to take them back and send out a new pair. The new pair arrived a bit over a week later, this time with no rattles!

Specifications

	Click to Enlarge Long eye relief

• 11x70, meaning 11x magnification and 70mm front lenses
• FOV 180m @ 1000 yards
• Long eye relief
• Large eye cups that can be folded down
• Can be fitted with tripod adapter
• Comes with lens caps and carry pouch

Put to Good Use

	Click to Enlarge Down the barrel!

After Murphy and his law finally gave up on me (2 weeks of cloudy nights), I finally was able to put the binoculars to use, and they were used on a semi-regular basis for about 6 months until I got my telescope.

I mounted them on a tripod I bought off ebay, which helped keep them steady. The binoculars are quite large, and quite heavy, and holding them by hand results in a very unstable image and as such little detail can be seen. Resting elbows on a fence or arm rests can help, but the tripod was invaluable for keeping the image steady and staying pointed at the one spot when referring back to star charts etc.

Click to Enlarge Size comparison to the mobile

Saxon aren't the best quality binoculars, but not the cheapest either. I'm not the best one to judge image quality with little to compare it with, but I was quite pleased with the performance of them on the moon and on deep space objects.

The moon looked great through them, crisp and clear and sharp to focus. Deep-space objects such as open clusters and star fields were magnificent, just scanning the milky way was a joy. Globular clusters appeared as fuzzy blobs (as expected), and nebulas (such as Orion, Eta Carinae, Lagoon) were quite easy to make out as blurry blue/grey areas around the stars.

I was a little disappointed with the performance on the planets, I think the optics were just a little limited compared to my expectations. Venus appeared as a bright star, Saturn as a oval shaped star and Jupiter as a bright star. It did appear as a disc of sorts, but the disc was not crisp and round. Light or glare annoyingly trailled off to the side. The 4 galilean moons were easy to spot, however.

Summary

Overall, I am quite happy with them. Good for taking away on holidays for daytime use, and for night-time use they are still awesome to just scan the milky way, taking in the star fields and spotting globulars, nebula and open clusters.

They'll still make a good accessory to the telescope, as the wide FOV will be useful for spotting an object of interest, before honing in on the area using the telescope.