A douple of pairs of Bins...

[johnbaz]

Hi all

I've started collectiong binoculars without realising it , i'm up to around eight pairs now

A set of Komz 8x30 are my favourites, they're fantastic!!..

They're small/lightweight enough to put in my workbag, on nightshift I like to have a walk out with the bins on my break but it seems like the gods know this and make it overcast purposely every time

I recently also bought a pair of compact 10x50 Selsi bins with Japanese optics which are ver nice and crisp too, I must admit that i'd never heard of Selsi bins and googled them, it would appear that they are more popular in the US...

The Selsi cost me the Princely sum of £3.50 at my local bootsale, The Komz were a tenner from the same bootsale...

Konz 8x30..

Selsi Compact 10x50..

Would either of these sets be OK for gazing the heavens at night or would I need something with a little more magnifying capability??

All together..

EDIT- Ooops!!- the title should have read A Couple of sets of Bins..

Cheers, John

[mdstuart]

Nice collection..I have a pair of GNU 7 x 50 and they are amazingly sharp..

The Japanses ones are alright and fine for viewing the stas but the russian ones are my favorite..

You can certainly see loads of clusters, double stars and brighter galaxies with bins and they are amazing for learning the sky....

Look on cloudy nights web site for Simon Spiers..He has tried out loads of bins and gives reports on them..

It seems there are a lot of 1970s Japanese models out there which are all reasonable for less than £10 a go...

Mark

[Chris]

Hi, in answer to your question, for star gazing with hand held bins a low magnification such as 7-10 is generally recommended, this is for 3 reasons I can think of, less image shake, wider field of view, and larger exit pupil which helps create a bright image in low light. Exit pupil is the objective lens diameter divided by the mag so 10x50 bins have an exit pupil of 5mm which is good, I've heard that you should keep exit pupil above 4mm for Astronomy. Your, 8x30 bins have an exit pupil of about 3.75 so not far off. I'd give both your 10x50 and your 8x30's a go, let us know how you get on:) I enjoy my vintage 10x50's and I've just took delivary of a lovely pair of Opticron 8x40 Aspherics from ebay for just 26 quid new!! which is possibly why I've reaped total cloud cover for the next week, still worth it though for that price:D

[johnbaz]

Thanks for the info gents

Regards, John

[BinocularSky]

You have some excellent binoculars for hand-held observing. The Russian Konz were generally very well made and gave very crisp images. A 10x50 will, of course, be brighter, but, unless the optics are as good, may not give as satisfying an experience (I tend to use a 10x42 as my purely hand-held option). There are hundreds of items you can see with what you have. For what it's worth, Lucian Kemble discovered his eponymous "Cascade" with a 7x35.

If you are looking for things to observe, you may find these pages on my web site useful; all links from these lead to detailed info, finder charts, etc:

All-Sky Maps (selectable by month and time)

Object Database Search (filterable by location, binocular size, object type and more)

Ten Easy Summer Star Hops (enough to get you going)

I hope that helps.

[MarkTwo]

Hi John,

I have had the smaller KOMZ 6x24's for four decades, they are excellent binoculars even if showing signs of wear and tear by now. I have really enjoyed looking at the skies with them. Although they may be pretty puny by astronomy standards they are still a huge step up from the naked eye and show oh so much more. I think any of your collection would give excellent views of the night skies.

Cheers,

Mark

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice collection of binoculars. I used to use a pair of 8x40 bins before moving to 10x50. I still use them despite having 15x70 bins which I can hand-hold for quite a while. As others have said, even small bins show a lot of stuff in the sky