Celestron Skymaster 20x80

[littlebrownjug]

Had a big clear out a few years ago and sold my Meade ETX70AT and regretted it ever since but didn't want to buy anything that was not quick easy to use and portable then I got the chance of buying and bought a pair of Celestron Skymaster 20x80 binoculars, I particularly liked the tripod mount on them but the question is did I choose well?

Got them yesterday and as you can guess it was cloudy when I got home lol

[happy-kat]

Have you got a chair to use when observing with them?

[happy-kat]

Should easy see the main Jupiter moons I think

[Putaendo Patrick]

 These can be very good for the price. Observing with higher power binoculars is a style all of its own, although you won't have the possibilities of magnification that a telescope gives - many targets can be better. Hope you enjoy them!

There are a lot of resources for astronomy with binoculars. You can download for free John Flannery's Binocular Certificate Handbook which he produced for the Irish Federation of Astronomical Societies at www.iasindy.org/documents/astronomy101/IFAS%20Binocular%20Handbook.pdf It provides some very interesting targets.

[Doug]

9 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Should easy see the main Jupiter moons I think

Yes they will pick out the 4 big moons but you will only see them as dots more than that you will need a scope best of luck 

[littlebrownjug]

Thanks everyone for your replies, I used them last night and I was very happy, obviously not as good as a scope which will be added very soon (when I figure out which one to buy and sneak it past my wife) but for portability and a learning tool I'm very happy.

On 17/11/2016 at 14:32, happy-kat said:

Have you got a chair to use when observing with them?

Nope I don't have a chair yet but I'm looking, what's the best one to get?

[Putaendo Patrick]

Just for fun, here's a couple of ATS women from WW2 using a spotter's chair to observe enemy aircraft:

There was even a "toy" model:

To be honest, it doesn't look too comfortable - perhaps to prevent you taking a snooze while on duty.

A lot of people create their own, usually with some sort of bar to support the binoculars in front of your eyes. So, if you have a spare dentist's chair lying around...

You can also use a photographic tripod with a horizontal bar beside your chair, or if the binoculars are too heavy, use a parallelogram mount: http://www.randombio.com/binoculars.html

 

 

[Pete Presland]

They are a large pair binoculars. Capable of seeing plenty of objects, given the right conditions. M31, M42 and M45 just to mention a few objects should look particularly fine through them.