Andrews 45 degree fork mounted binoculars

[Mokusatsu (Australia)]

I'm mulling over the idea of saving a few pennies up for one of the $2,499 45 degree binos from Andrews: http://www.andrewscom.com.au/binoculars

I've not seen through them, nor read any reviews.

It's a lot of money to pay for a pair of binoculars that aren't from a premium Japanese brand where optical perfection is assured.

So before I spend too much time thinking about them, has anyone used them?

I like that they have the 45 degree angling, and that you can use any 1.25" eyepiece. I've talked to Andrews and they can accept longer focal length eyepieces than supplied (up a a limit set by vignetting of course) so I'm enticed by the possibilities of these things mounted on my parallelogram mount with widefield eyepieces.

Before I spend months saving up to drop a few grand on a new toy though... are they any good? Especially since there are slightly less fancy 100x25s at the same place for much less?

[GUS.K (Ivan)]

I bought one some years ago, replaced the eyepieces with a couple of vixen 22mm LVWs which gives about 27x mag for some stunning milkyway views, and the moon is fantastic as well. The eyepieces are changeable, but quite hard to exchange, so I just keep the 22mm's in them most of the time, but have used 13mm LVWs as well which provide about 46x. I think the newer ones have better eyepiece collets for easier eyepiece swap. The supplied eyepieces aren't that great.The down side is the weight, with the LVWs and a finder the weight is close to 15kg for the bino body and then there is the mount as well. I used to own the Andrews 25x100 standard Binos as well, but found the optical quality of the 45 deg unit better.As great as these are, I'm getting to the point where the weight is becoming an issue, and find myself using my smaller binoculars more often.

[GUS.K (Ivan)]

I bought one some years ago, replaced the eyepieces with a couple of vixen 22mm LVWs which gives about 27x mag for some stunning milkyway views, and the moon is fantastic as well. The eyepieces are changeable, but quite hard to exchange, so I just keep the 22mm's in them most of the time, but have used 13mm LVWs as well which provide about 46x. I think the newer ones have a better eyepiece collets for easier eyepiece swap. The supplied eyepieces aren't that great.The down side is the weight, with the LVWs and a finder the weight is close to 15kg for the bino body and then there is the mount as well. I used to own the Andrews 25x100 standard Binos as well, but found the optical quality of the 45 deg unit better.As great as these are, I'm getting to the point where the weight is becoming an issue, and find myself using my smaller binoculars more often.

[g__day (Matthew)]

Struck me as $500 for optics, $2,000 for case and mount. Not how I wish to allocate funds. Wouldn't similar sized ones on Andrews for $500 or a $650 trapezium mount be a lot more effective spend?

[Mokusatsu (Australia)]

Gus, what's the widest true field you can get out of these before vignetting or edge sharpness becomes a real issue?

My idea, or maybe the fantasy if you will, is to slot in a couple of wide (80 degree or more) AFOV eyepieces with the lowest useable magnification to make something just for taking in vistas...

But 15kg is an awful lot. I'm having second thoughts now and swinging back to the standard $500 100x25s.

I have a very sturdy parallelogram mount I can put binoculars onto so the issue would just come down to how often I can be bothered hauling them out somewhere, especially since they would be travelling with my scope which is a massive lump of a thing too.

[g__day (Matthew)]

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...d.php?t=141155 $380

[dimithri86 (Dimithri)]

Anyone know how the Andrews compare to the Celestron 25x100?

[AstralTraveller (David)]

The Andrews unit look like they are from the same (Chinese) factory as the Oberwerks, which I think get good reviews. Considering you pay $US2200-2300 plus shipping for the Oberwerks the Andrews price doesn't seem inflated. Whether it's good value for money is up to you.

BTW when looking for Oberwerk reviews I found this:

http://www.skyhawkoptics.com/collections/all

[dannat (Daniel)]

if i were you id be looking at the APM units available either in the US or direct from APM in germany, the semi APO are about 1100US, the APO are $3k -either will be a better buy
you will need to grab either a serious fluid head & tripod to mount, or something ike a unistar to mount them

the build quality on the 25x100 celestron will be sub-par, many of the sky masters can't hold collimation

have you ever used big binos -they are an acquired taste -best to try them before dropping that king of coin

[Satchmo]

I spent a night using these Fork mount binos at SPSP one year . I think they are made by Kunming United Optical.

These binoculars are in a completely different league of optical and mechanical quality to the 25 X 100 's you see around for $400. They use triplet semi-apo objectives and I would describe them as two apo telescopes locked together . Sure there is a touch of false colour , but these optical trains are telescope grade.

I used 24 Panoptics , 17mm Hyperion , 13mm Nagler and 7mm Nagler eyepieces ( no vignetting visible ) . The eyepiece barrels are chromed and a fairly snug twist fit , so you would want to try an eypiece first before you bought a pair. The 7mm ( 95X ) showed a slight mis collimation when we looked at Saturn . We took the plate off the porro housing on that side to find the porro prisms mounted on very sturdy mounts with ...wait for it...large brass worm and wheel assemblies with screw adjusters . These will not routinely lose collimation . A tiny tweak and we had images merged. The view of Saturn featured the Cassini Division easily and shadow of globe on rings .

The contrast was very good and the field very flat and sharp with all eyepieces . The objectives are F6.

The binoculars are very heavy for one person to fit onto the fork. These binoculars really need a large sturdy parallelogram mount such as sold at Big Binoculars and they would really shine as the fork mount is hard to use in that jacking the head up to get the eyepieces at a convenient height is not so easy .

The ones I used were from a bunch of 3 that had been brought in by an individual importer and one pair had proved to have substandard optics. This set had a nice star test , so as with everything from China if you buy a pair buyer beware and make sure the vendor is prepared to swap yours out or give you a refund in an agreed period if you find the optics to be poor. Tricky when you have a reasonable expectation of looking at stars .

Hope this helps.