Which Binos for Lapland

[andyc277]

ON 20th Dec this year we are taking our little girl to Lapland to meet Santa. Due to the lack of light pollution and how far north we'll be I'm not going to miss out on skies up there, 4 hours "daytime" means plenty of time for viewing and fingers crossed for some aurora activity. 

Which Bino's would be best? I've discounted a travel scope due to the 0 to -20 temperatures and the lenses/optics freezing over.  Or have I made a wrong assumption anywhere.

[Astrobod]

I'd go for a good quality pair of binoculars. Ones that your can hold nice and steady and operate with gloves on.  I've got a pair of Nikon 10 - 22 X 50 excellent quality.  Nice trip by the way, hope you see the aurora and take some photos.

[ronin]

A decent set of 8x42's will do well.

Really unless you are going to go into more specialist optics they will do fine.

10x50 often sound better but do no more and are a little bulkier.

[Peter Drew]

Waterproof ones, you don't want them to be affected by rain dear. 

[Marky1973]

Andy, we went last year, and it is an absolutely fantastic trip. I did buy a travel scope to take, but left it behind in the end as it was too much to carry one and the forecast for the weather wasn't conducive to star-gazing. So Binoculars are a much better bet I reckon. We didn't see a star for the whole time we were there, so the scope would have been a waste. We didn't get a chance to go and see the Aurora, so it may have been clearer elsewhere, but our location was cloudy most of the time.

I took a sturdy(ish) tripod and my camera for other opportunities - although you are likely to be taking photos of the kids beaming faces, rather than the sky!

Great trip though, you will love it - we went through Thomsons and stayed at the Christmas Cottages near Rovaniemi.....if you have any questions about the trip, you are more than welcome to PM me!

[andyc277]

Thanks for the tip Peter. 

Thanks for the offer Marky, I might well take you up on it.

As well as which Binos what mount to put them on a tripod?