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A guy at work bought the 3 inch reflector from Aldi . He knew nothing about astronomy and was even surprised that the image is inverted when he tried to align his finderscope..was about to return the scope as faulty.
Two weeks on he has seen nothing and has no idea how to run his scope-if he had a pair of binos and a star map or a decent beginners book he could have been away and running.
IMHO Binos are easier to use..objects are easier to find , its more intuitive than pushing a dob around, and far easier than mastering the movements in spherical coordinates of a GEM
The set up time is non existent-you can use them for 15 minutes when there is a sucker hole amidst the clouds
some objects arguably actually look better in binos-eg the five of diamonds in Carina or even the Pleides or the Magellqanic Clouds
you will always use a bino even when you have a scope-Maybe GOTO users who dont need to know the sky at all have little use for binos but for everyone else binos are as essential as a finderscope. Plus two eyes are sometimes better than one..
some nights I cant be bothered carrying all the gear out so its easy to grab a star map and my 20 x80s and head out to the backyard.
I used a 7 x50 binos for over a year-wish I had started with a 10 x50 but that is beside the point.
I still think its reasonable advice to start with binos but believe the starter should be 10 x 50s not 7 x50s..
Look if you are going to be turned away by not seeing nebulae in colour you may as well be left with a piece of equipment that you can use at the cricket-or whale or bird (of all types) watching if you are into that sort of thing
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