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It's that time of year again....


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Hi, it's nearly that time of year again, my birthday, I'm looking to get myself a bino to go with my scope, I'm looking at something like a 10x50 in a top price range of £100 or there abouts depending on if I get any extra money for birthday. Need some advice on which one to get, have seen the marine bino from strathspeys and the various ones at FLO, which are the best one to get?

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I think the Strathspey Marine are a good choice for astronomy as they have individual focussing eyepieces. However if these are to be 'multi-purpose' binoculars you're better off with centre focussing (maybe the Helios Nature Sport)?

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I bought some old 60's 10x50 bins from Ebay for a tenner and the optical and mechanical quality is great, they stand up very well to my Opticron Apsherics which are a modern binocular which won a group test in Sky & Telescope and retall for about 80 pounds. So if you want to test the water with minimal outlay this might be another option for you. Things to avoid are ruby coatings and zoom functions, I second looking at tetenterre's web site for more on what to look out for:)

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I have owned the Strathspey 10x50 waterproof and yesterday acquired a nearly new pair of their 15x70s and can definitely recommend both. Collimation was slightly out with the former and somewhat out with the latter, but easy enough to fix.

I believe the waterproof model has a slightly wider field of view than the marine, although it's centre not individual focus. Otherwise they are optically the same I think and the waterproof model is cheaper!

Tom

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  • 2 weeks later...

ok, just a quick update, I bought a 2nd hand pair of Zenith 10x50 5° binoculars at the SW Astro fair at NLO on saturday for £10. They are so much better than my Miranda 10x50 (which suffer from fungi) had quick look through them last night, managed to a few stars in between the clouds, might have seen M31 but with so much cloud cover it was hard to see any constellations. Thats saved me some money which I can now put towards upgrading my 130 scope to a 200pds from FLO :-)

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  • 2 years later...

ok, just a quick update, I bought a 2nd hand pair of Zenith 10x50 5° binoculars at the SW Astro fair at NLO on saturday for £10. They are so much better than my Miranda 10x50 (which suffer from fungi) had quick look through them last night, managed to a few stars in between the clouds, might have seen M31 but with so much cloud cover it was hard to see any constellations. Thats saved me some money which I can now put towards upgrading my 130 scope to a 200pds from FLO :-)

Funny old thing! I saw some Zenith 10x50's this week for a tenner in a local shop. There is much writing on the inside of the case lid, with the original owners address, but  with a new cloth insert,  the box alone would be worth a tenner!. That said, I saw a mark on the inside of the objective, that almost looked like a gun shot hole on the inside of the lens. Its probably just  fungus or something,  but  they seemed to be collimated ok, I might take another look. I'f I can rub the mark away on the objective, they may get purchased ?

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You should be - Steve knows what he is talking about.It's also a great site in general.

x1. Binocular Sky is a wonderful resource. Finally ordered a copy of Steve's book & I'll bet it's a goodie when it arrives (late to the party but hey.....)

Flax, congrats on the £10 Zeniths by the way! Looking forward to reading your first clear light (hmmm...Clear Light, remember them? About the same time as Earth Opera. Lord, I've turned into that 'certain age 'type!)

ps Chicken soup here tonight - hoping it may clear for a gander at King Jove & the Harem about 5ayem.

:DSteve:D

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Are these the same Kuming BA8 as http://www.firstlightoptics.com/william-optics-binoculars/william-optics-10x50-7x50-ed-binocular.html? If so for £50 - £80 cheaper, depending on the exchange rage, that looks amazing.

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...........bit annoyed that I never purchased them straight away? On return to a closed shop, they are no longer there in the window, assumed sold.  No contact telephone number either, so will have to check again. Maybe they have just been moved inside the shop?  Gotta be worth a tenner for some old Russian glass!

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