Andromeda.....and my new binoculars

[the lemming]

My 20x80 binoculars finally arrived in the post a couple of days ago and with a little fiddling yesterday I got them focused to my eyes.

If anybody is interested, in daylight the binoculars have a bit of chromatic aberration giving a tinge around distinctive contrasting edges. But what else do you expect for £100. :-)

Last night for the first time, I discovered Andromeda, which was nice, if not a little anti-climatic. Maybe I was expecting a little more than what seemed like careract on my binoculars. However I did see another galaxy, which is pretty cool in anybody's book.

I initially bought my binoculars as a prelude to getting a 200 dob, provided I still had the spark of exploration at the end of the winter.

With all this in mind I have a new question. If I compared my expensive(?) £100 binoculars with an 8 inch dob, how much bigger, brighter and spectacular would Andromeda be with a telescope?

I was quite impressed with the 3 moons around Jupiter last night. :-)

[Pete Presland]

it would certainly be brighter,jupiter would be much bigger as well. you would be able to see 4 moons and some cloud bands plus the red spot if it was in view at the time you are looking.

have you got your bino's on a tripod?

[Pingster]

For deep sky the sVope will do as bunnygod1 said. Bigger brighter and deeper. But rea my words with caution. Adrom will have boths its companions visible, but dont expect to see cloudy smoke in their dust lanes. They will look like an squirt of grey paint pilled out into an oval shape. Hope that names sense. Jupitor will look much better as you can most likely go up to 150 mag on most night ketting you see the bands and the moons. Maybe colour on clear nights. Orion will look fantastic, somthig your bins cant match due to their low mag.

Oddly you may in time perfer te view of androm in your bins. I personally find my bins endlessly enjoyabke to use sitting down with a modded paragon mount so can be used laying down. On days of dad seeing, bins somehow darkeb the sky to a lovely dark shade if grey and even black. Reflectors in my experience dont do this so well.

[themos]

Comparing the view of Andromeda galaxy last night between 15x70 binoculars, 12" Dob and 16" Dob, I thought the 12" didn't really bring anything new to the party but then again there's very little structure visible on M31. The 16" could however offer glimpses of the dust lanes and presented such a bright image that viewing was transformed. I think you'll have to pick a different object to base comparisons on.

[the lemming]

I think you'll have to pick a different object to base comparisons on.

I'm open to suggestions.

Cheers

[the lemming]

have you got your bino's on a tripod?

Sure do. My Manfrotto tripod came good in the end, especially as I hardly ever use it for its intended purpose.

Cheers

[themos]

Almost everything else will reveal more detail in an 8". The Moon, the planets, globular clusters, open clusters, most galaxies, supernova remnants, planetary nebulas, comets, sunspots.

[pvaz]

What themos said.

Except galaxies, those are all fuzzy patches on an 8". M51 is the only galaxy where I was able to see structure so far.