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Jared185

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Hi all,

So this is my first post here lol. Anyway I am also new to the hobby. I've always been interested in astronomy and star gazing but never could get the time with college job and kids. But now I'm getting a little more me time, and would like to Get started. I had an old telescope from when I was a kid but it got messed up in the storage building. And I'm going to get another one but I'm going to try to get a nice one so I'm saving up for it. Anyway I actually heard that binoculars are most often better for a beginner so I'm going to start there. Anyway like I was saying I live in small town so mainly all the options available as far as binoculars go are hunting binoculars; Nikon bush elk etc. I won't do online shopping anymore bc the post office keep delivering my package in the wrong place. So here's my questions.

1. What is a good size binocular to look for. I heard 8x42 or 10x50.

2. What can I expect to see with binoculars. Some of the biggest things I'd like to see with some detail is; the moon,planets,asteroids,space station etc.

3. Also is it true more people prefer binoculars over the telescope.

4. Just starting out I'd rather keep the budget relatively limited I purchased a star chart and my budget for the binoculars are under 120.00 dollars so far I've heard the Nikon aculon 8x42 would be the best.

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People can start with binoculars, but they are not an alternative. What they do or deliver is different.

One way of putting it is that binoculars allow you to look around, a scope allows you to look at.

One other aspect is that if you are collecting money together for a scope do you want to divert some off to getting binoculars?

You will, as just about everyone has (including myself), get both a scope and binoculars eventually.

Using the planets as a subject:
In 8x42 you can see Jupiter and the 4 moons around it, but Jupiter remains a small disk with no detail. Similar for Saturn, small disk but no rings.

If you want detail such as Jupiters bands then you need something like 60x and that means a scope, for Saturn you are needing about 120x for the planet and the rings.

I would say just get 8x42's, they are easy to use and generally pose no problem hand holding them.

If you go for 16x70's then bigger, more cost and you need a tripod, so bit more cost and 15x still means Jupiter and Saturn are small disks and no detail like banding.

It is not a case of "don't get", but much more a case of understand the difference between the 2 instruments. I have 5 scopes and 4 pairs of binoculars, but they do different jobs. If I want to stand outside for 20-30 minutes and just look around then I get the binoculars, but if the Great Red Spot is visible then it has to be a scope at say 100x.

Binoculars are good for locating where clusters are, you sweep the sky in the right area and hopefully they appear, to an extent you then know where to point a scope to see the cluster in more detail.

Anyone got a set you can borrow?

One option is look at a few second hand, charity shops etc as binoculars can appear in them for not a great cost.

Any clubs near you? Seeing scopes in use and looking through a few can help enormously.

US clubs listed here: http://www.go-astronomy.com/

KY has 8 spread around: http://www.go-astronomy.com/astro-clubs-state.php?State=KY

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Thanks for input, I got a Meade telescope not to long ago it's a Meade 114EQ-AR 4.5"/114mm Reflector Telescope. It come from a yard sale and come with a 9mm eye piece only. It come with the computer but it won't turn on and last night I tried to look at the moon. I seen the light from the moon and the circle but it wouldn't focus.

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Binoculars are excellent for learning the positions of everything in the sky.  Even the widest field of view eyepiece on a telescope will give you a very narrow image, making it difficult to navigate your way around unless you know what you're doing. Binoculars though have a very wide field of view, and give you an image which is the right way up, not upside down and back to front like in a telescope. This makes it much easier to learn how to track down targets in your star atlas.

However, unless these targets are of a size comparable to the Moon, the Pleiades (M45), Orion Nebula (M42), and Andromeda Galaxy (M31) or Beehive Cluster (M44), what you will see may be disappointing. You'll see Jupiter's moons, and with a quality binocular will be able to make out the planets as discs rather than just bright stars, but you'll see no surface detail, and the vast majority of deep sky objects will be very small, little more than a faint smudge at 8-10x or even at 20x with larger binoculars. To see anything in impressive detail you need a telescope. But so long as you're aware of this, a good pair of 10x50s will be all you need to get started, and between them and your atlas you will learn a lot.

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Hi Jared,

I would highly recommend going to a store and testing different binoculars to see what you prefer. The recommended spec is 10x50 but I find 10x abit too shaky for me, however others are fine with this mag so it is all about preference.

I’ve owned a Celestron 15x70 Skymaster for a while but found at that magnification you require tripod, which meant I rarely used it. So I am now going for an 8x42 Vortex Diamondback and a Canon IS 15x50 (with electronic image stabilisation). The diamondback is alittle above your budget but I would certainly give it a test if you can find one in a store near you.

Also the best telescope is the one you use the most! I believe this is one of the reasons why some people prefer binoculars because you can instantly grab them and look at the sky.

Oli

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8x42 here we use.

Focus. I wonder if your telescope is missing something like a diagonal. Scrap that idea it would not it is a reflector.

I think we could try and get what you have working.

Do you have any pictures?

A home made collimation cap would help in this.

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I like 8x42 for hand holding. I don't find any difference in brightness between these and 10x50.

Once you get to larger aperture and higher magnification I think you are getting into tripod binocular territory which is a different game.

I liked Ronin's phrase, 'One way of putting it is that binoculars allow you to look around, a scope allows you to look at.'

Binoculars allow you to see many nebulae - 'see' in the sense that you can see where they are - but not many will reveal significant detail. You will also be able to see, in the same sense, many galaxies.

Olly

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Hi Jared,

1. What is a good size binocular to look for. I heard 8x42 or 10x50.

For hand-holding, yes. I find that I can see a bit more with a 10x50 than with an 8x42 of equivalent quality. The last two words are important: quality of optics makes a heck of a difference. Olly's 8x42 is a Leica: superb quality, and a price to match!

2. What can I expect to see with binoculars. Some of the biggest things I'd like to see with some detail is; the moon,planets,asteroids,space station etc.

Apart from learning the sky, in general the strength of hand-held binoculars is asterisms, large open clusters, and some other large deep sky objects. If your interest is solar system objects (other than the Earth! :grin: ), double stars, and small deep sky stuff, you really need the magnification typical of a telescope.

3. Also is it true more people prefer binoculars over the telescope.

Yes, some do. I am one of them. I love the portability and the relative speed of setting up, even with my big mounted binoculars. That said, this may change when I eventually build my observatory and have a permanently mounted telescope. They say that the best observing instrument is the one you use the most, and I use my binoculars far more than I use my telescopes. Or, put another way, if I did not use binoculars for astronomy, I would observe a lot less than I do now.

4. Just starting out I'd rather keep the budget relatively limited I purchased a star chart and my budget for the binoculars are under 120.00 dollars so far I've heard the Nikon aculon 8x42 would be the best.

I have a page on choosing binoculars here. The price info is for the UK, so not relevant to you, but the general principles are, I like to think, sound.

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Well thanks for all the input guys I really appreciate it. So I actually talked with a club around my area. The binoculars the particular club suggested (said they all use them) was the bushnell 12x48 power view said they like them better. The other thing they suggested scope wise to start out with was the celestron travel 70mm refractor scope. Since I travel a lot. How's this setup sound starting out. I can buy both with a little extra money which is fine. The Meade scope I have I can send a pic of lol, once I figure out how to do it on here. I tried to take it out again just to see if I could mess with it and make little adjustments but to no avail. I would love to get it working though

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I found out the problem with my Meade telescope. It was the lens. It wasn't cracked or anything but I took it out and dropped a new one in and problem solved. I could see clearly. Only problem is now the storm clouds are moving in. I feel like an idiot for not checking the lens sooner but hey I'm a noob. Lol.

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