Star Tracker 15 x 70 binoculars

[baggywrinkle]

I was in Melbourne last week on business and whilst there I dropped into Ozscopes to pick up a Celestron Zoom EP and I also picked up a pair of Star Trecker 15 x 70 Bak 4 Prism bin's.m Price A$160 ( about £100). I did not intend to buy but.......

I looked at the Celestron 15 x 70 bino's but these were another $80 more and in my opinion they came out of the same factory in China, except the Celestron are badged and mine are Star Tracker with no othe ID marking and I had never heard of Star Tracker before.

I have now had a some nice clear nights (apart from a gibeous to full moon) to have a play and a nice clear morning sky with no Moon this morning.

I mounted them with an L bracket on my camera tripod. Initially I added a divers belt weights to the hook on the tripod but this created wobble as the mass did a pendulum movement whenever I changed position. Much better without.

The Jewel Box cluster in the Southern Cross was easy and well defined, the Southern Pleiades too. The Moon's glare prevented a decent sweep of the Milky Way in the evening but Saturn revealed lumps to port & starboard, so the rings are doable but of course no great resolution.

This morning I was up at 5 a.m. and Orion and Taurus were in the Eastern sky, The Pleiades were wonderfull, sharp all the way across, and the bin's revealed the features in Orion's Sword belt in lovely detail. The M42 was clearly visible along with the brighter stars inside.

The collimation is good and the eye relief compared to my Bushell's is so much better. In a rich star field there is little distortion at the edges. I also seemed to have more diopter adjustment on these compared to the Bushnell's as I push my specs up when using bino's.

For the price a great pair of binoculars.