[mbaddah (Mo)]

Originally Posted by chris lewis

If you are staying free hand holding then really the binos you have are suitable. However they are both close in terms of aperture and magnification - but the 7x50 does give you a wider FOV at around 7 degrees Tfov. which is good for wide angle scanning. The Orion is narrower at 5.8 degress.
One option could be to sell the Orion and get something like a AOE 11x70 -which is still hand holdable but will enable you to noticably gather more light and see deeper. AOE and others do also sell a high quality 10.5x70 'Ultra' WP version which has excellent optical and build qualities but it is heavy.
A 70 mm size bino on a dark sky site will give you impressive viewing.
A 7x50 and a 11x70 would be a good combo.
Dew heater strips are available - try AOE or Bintel.
Mine is but one opinion - ask around and see what others say.

Chris

Hi Chris,

I checked the weight of the 11x70 aoe binos and they seem quite heavy for hand holding unfortunately. I may just keep the Orion binos and go for something with a little more aperture and mag. I've been reading reviews of the Celstron 15x70 which seem to get a good rep for 'bang-for-buck'.

Ofcourse these will need to be mounted on a tripod of some sort.

Originally Posted by dannat

Probably the easiest thing to do rather than dew heating is to make some dew shields from poly pipe which is painted black & or flocked.{a 3-4 inches}.you just have to find some pipe which is close to the outer diameter of the binos..line the end of the pipe with black felt or velcro to help it hold

Thanks Dannat I'll have to do something like this and test it out.