Helios Naturesport 10x50 Premier?! (Not the plus)

[Hazio123]

Hi all, new to these parts and as in my welcome post, I've always had an interest in the stars and 2 years ago I went straight in at the deep end and bought a Skymax 127 GoTo. However, it didn't work out for me, not portable enough for my flat, never got it GoTo-ing and in short wasn't patient enough with it, so I sold it.

Still, I find myself looking up and wanting to see more. So I've gone back to basics (the part which I skipped first time around) and am investing in a pair of 10x50 binos for Christmas.

After trawling through here and reading a couple of articles, I was aiming for a cheapish pair of Bak4 (fully) multicoated lenses. In the end I narrowed it down to a budget pair of Helious Fieldmaster 10x50's...but last night stumbled across and accidentally (with help from a glass of vino) bought these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261141860266

Helios NatureSport Premier 10x50

Anybody have any experience with them? and does anybody know if they are bak4 of bk7. The 'plus' model certainly use bak4, but I can't find any info on this one, the 'premier'. I'm doing my best not to get caught up in the whole technical side of things, but I'm curious. My beginner eyes probably won't be able to tell the difference anyway. My thinking was I can't go wrong for £35...but can I?

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Welcome to SGL Hazio,

These are very decent binoculars and well suited to astronomy. They are Bak-4 (nice, but not as important as quality of optical surfaces and collimation) were the Sky at Night best buy under 125 quid. There is a first light report here:

[Hazio123]

I had a read this earlier, looking good thanks... This is however the page that's confusing me:

http://www.flybird.co.uk/nature_sport.htm

Which is accessed from here: (a pretty comprehensive looking site - and it lists Premier)

http://www.flybird.co.uk/helios_roof_prism.htm

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Actually, the latter is not that complete: the Helios Apollo I have is missing. I would not worry, have a look through them, and see if you like them, that is the ultimate test. Bak-4 or Bak-7 is not as big an issue as many say. You can make dud bins with the best glass, and really good ones with older types of glass.

Edit: maybe there is a difference between Naturesport, and Naturesport-Plus, but the design looks very much the same in the images on e-bay (naturesport on the box) and FLO (Naturesport-plus, but no box)