binoculars

[bill54]

HI.  I own a pair of Swift newport mk 11 10x50  wich are rather heavy, a pair of Olympus dps 10x50 and a pair of Barr Stroud sierra 12x50  do I need to upsize or buy a better pair?

[laudropb]

Hi Bill. I suppose it depends on how happy you are with what you've got. Upsizing will almost certainly mean that you have to mount your bins to hold them steady. 

Have you looked at The Binocular Sky website. Lots of interesting reviews there and very useful sky maps published each month.

[RT65CB-SWL]

Various mounting options do exist, (assuming you are happy with your binoculars), is to mount them to a camera tripod or parallelogram mount. Anything is better than nothing at all, but it depends on what you enjoy viewing, and your budget.

+1 for The Binocular Sky website too.

[Charic]

I know Binocular Sky has recommended the Swift II's as a good all round pair of optics. Mount your optics to get a steady image, the difference is notable, I mount my 8x40'  for a sharper image!

[Ben the Ignorant]

2 hours ago, bill54 said:

HI.  I own a pair of Swift newport mk 11 10x50  wich are rather heavy, a pair of Olympus dps 10x50 and a pair of Barr Stroud sierra 12x50  do I need to upsize or buy a better pair?

If you buy another 10x50 or 12x50, even an excellent one, you can't gain much, and you'll end up with four binocs having almost the same specs. It's better to upsize; when I switch from my 10x50 to my 16x70, many more stars appear. Barely-there clusters that are just a little peppering become real, recognizable populated clusters; you can easily imagine what the difference is with the other astro targets.

[bill54]

Thanks everybody.  I'll look at binocularsky as suggested and i am considering going up a size or two