Binoculars - Info Wanted

[Raydar]

Hi IceInSpacers,

I want to buy some binos this week. What are good bino's for Astronomy? What I should look for when buying them? :confuse3:

Thanks in advance

[Starkler]

Do you want small binos to hand hold, or do you have a tripod for mounting them, allowing bigger binos?

[Starkler]

Take a peek at the bottom of this page for "similar threads"

[janoskiss]

How much are you willing to spend? Hand held or tripod mounted?

I assume it's for learning the sky mainly for hand held use and you don't want to spend a lot. Hand held 10x is the max magnification you can hold steady enough if you have steady arms/hands. I find 10x too much for me and 7-8x works much better. Given these magnification constraints and the need to collect as much light as possible for astronomy, the apertures you should be looking at are between about 40 & 55mm.

Some suggestions (which I bought and tried myself):
- Celestron UpClose 10x50 about $65 IIRC (from centre.net.au). Best binos for the money. Great apparent field of view (AFOV).
- AOE 7x50s for $120 IIRC (from www.aoe.com.au). These are also superb for the money; very little light scatter gives superb dark background sky. I can spot the brighter non-naked eye galaxies with these binos no probs. Relatively narrow AFOV (as is always the case with 7x50s), but good true FOV.

Actually all the AOE binos should be very good value and the AOE guys are great to deal with. If you have more than about $200-300 to spend, there are lot more options that more experienced members can tell you about.

[Starkler]

Oh I should mention do NOT be tempted to buy from ebay !

I got stung once with the worst pair of binos I have ever had the misfortune to look through. Coating were non-existant and it took threats of bad feedback and much correspondance to get the vendor to take them back.

As Steve mentions the AOE range are great value at the low price end with regard to coating and optical quality.

[Raydar]

Hey Janoskiss and Starkler,

Thanks for the responses.

Yes, hand held, not tripod. I am happy to spend a few hundred dollars on a pair.

I will google the AOE ones.

Thanks for the help so far.

Ray