Amazing what 10x50's can show

[StarSapling]

Thursday night is boob tube night at my house.  After several hours sitting on the couch with the family watching our shows, I went outside to stretch my legs and just take a naked eye look at the sky.  I noticed that the sky seemed darker, even though the moon was brighter, than it had been on the last few nights, finally some good transparency.  I decided to grab the 10x50's, put them on the P-mount and do a little casual sweeping.

4/23/2015 - Oracle, Arizona - seeing good - transparency good - obseerver good - waxing crescent moon

10x50’s

Luna:

Good views of Atlas, Hercules, Janssen with Posidonius just being revealed on the terminator - Great view of Mare Nectaris with Fracastorius at its southern end.

Galaxies:

M81, M82 and M104 - all showing their shapes with M81 and M104 showing bright cores and halos

Globular Clusters:

M13, M92, M3 and M5 - All appearing as various sized small fuzzy spheres.

Amazing what can be seen with mounted 10x50’s.  I can remember, as a teenager, pining away for a telescope so I could observe Galaxies and Globular Clusters never realizing I could observe some of them with the binoculars I already owned!

[damnut]

Great stuff, as well as knowing where objects are in the sky you also begin to star hop to other objects.

[ghostdance]

Lovely night SS, very nice report

Those Arizona skies. All those Messiers, just with bins...you lucky thing.

Can't help thinking I missed a trick the times I've been in Az by not going outside enough at night. Too caught up in the bars

Sigh...If I ever make it back there, I'll not miss the chance again.

[Tonynexevo925]

I'm in Dumfries Scotland for a holiday and have brought my 10x50 with me - the hotel is in the middle of nowhere and the skies are so dark compared to home!!! The difference in viewing is simply amazing. - I will need to locate a dark sky site near home soon.

[Dinosour23]

My 7x50 dont show anything, you can barely resolve 1-2 moons of Jupiter from a suburban town.

Beehive is 95% invisible and I can only "see" it because I know for a fact its there.

I assume the move to x10 is significant even at 50mm ?

Because my 11x70 show telescope like views...

Anyone else thinks x7 is just not sufficient for nom desert astronomy ?

[BinocularSky]

Thursday night is boob tube night at my house. 

Ah, the delight of "two countries split by a common language":

http://www.matalan.co.uk/product/detail/s2592774/boob-tube-top

I assume the move to x10 is significant even at 50mm ?

Under light pollution, yes. Essentially, the increased magnification dims the sky background, improving contrast, and making fainter point objects (stars) more easily visible. This the reason that limiting magnitude for any given instrument depends to some extent on magnification.

[kerrylewis]

Interesting thread. My 'BIg Trip' is less than 2 weeks away and I'm looking forward to those famed Arizona skies with my Canon IS 18x50. Seems like I won't need scope

[goose35]

Got some old praktika 12x50s.

I managed to resolve m101 the last few nights whilst training myself to use averted vision.

Im well chuffed

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Great report! 10x50s are great and very versatile for astronomy. The only reason I don't use them as much as I used to is the fact that I have 15x70s. Bins are just great grab and go instruments.