CF and high magnification.

[tico]

Hello,

 I ´m looking for a good binocular with CF and high magnification for airplanes observations, but also Moon,some Messier bright  and terrestrial aplkcations..

Thanks in advance for your comments and advices.

Tico

 

Edited October 1, 2019 by tico

[DaveL59]

general concensus is anything higher than 10x will be harder to hand hold and keep steady, most go for 8x or 10x, avoid zoom ones. You might be able to go to 12x but more you'd need a means of stabilising (mono/tripod). There are stabilised binos but they're pretty expensive and heavier.

Choice will be between porro or roof designs, if roof find ones that are phase coated prism for sharper image if you go above 8x mag, also largest aperture objective you can afford if you plan to use at night or low light.

[Peter Drew]

A binocular to do everything you wish for is going to involve as many compromises as a telescope would for similar purposes.

There are plenty of reasonably priced 100mm binoculars with CF and enough magnification to suit you but they would have to be mounted. Aircraft are best viewed at high angles which can be difficult to access on a common tripod. Angled eyepieces are available on some binoculars but I don't think there are any with CF.  A parallelogram mount would be a big benefit but it adds considerably to the cost.   😀

[Rusted]

A refractor, with expensive [wide field] binoviewers, mounted on a 2" 45° terrestrial prism might suit.
It would required a solid mounting and a serious focuser to support the cantilevered weight.

Be aware that finding an aircraft in the sky is a difficult skill even with normal 8-10x binoculars.
There is usually nothing to guide you to find the small aircraft against the whole sky. Except vapour trails?
It's not like centring a bird in a tree where you have lots of visual clues from the branches.

The higher the power [magnification] the smaller the field of view and the greater the image shake from any vibrations.
It would be completely impossible to handhold such an instrument.

[tico]

Hello,
Today during the morning they have lent me a spotting scope of 65mm with an eyepiece at 45º and with a zoom, 15X-45X magbification, and well ... on the one hand I have to say that the eyepiece at 45º I think it does not benefit the search of the plane, it is quite complicated to find him, I think it is easier, much easier with straight eyepieces, such as with the small binocular that I have 8X30 or even with one that left me 12X50 ...,
I will say that the use of the zoom goes well to enlarge the image although it is not easy at all.
That is why I think that an instrument with a straight eyepiece is better, but I wonder if a spotting scope with a straight eyepiece would be better than a straight binocular with a fixed magnification, of course with a magnification of 20X upwards, since when I could "catch" the plane with powers of 20x or 25X the image was much better in details than an image with 8X or 10X ..
Thanks again.