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Hello,

I am new to this board and am hoping for a bit of advice. My husband and I are completely new to this. We have been saying for years we'd find some good places to look at the stars (there's too much light by us). I was thinking of buying my husband some binoculars for Christmas. I had a look on a site that sells them but quickly realised I have no idea what to look for. I'm hoping for some advice on a good pair for beginers that isn't too expensive. Or at least what feature to look for.

Thank you.

Sara

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Hello Sara,

I would recommend you look at porro prism bins over the roof prism type, ive tried both for stargazing and would say the porro style is better suited.

Opticron make excellent bins for the price, have you set a budget?

50mm objectives are the minimum i would choose for stargazing, something like Opticron Vega II 8x56 are good, they arnt heavy but will set you back about £80 a pair. i prefer the imagic 10x50 at just over £100.

hope you enjoy the bins you eventually choose but be warned!! soon enough 50mm obs wont be good enough, ive had mine for a while and now i crave BIGGER! im looking at Helios Quantum 4 25x100.

check out First Light Optics - Suppliers of Skywatcher, Celestron, William Optics, Meade, Coronado Solar, Tal, Burgess Optical, Baader Planetarium, Astrozap and Kendrick, they sponsor this site and have some very competetive prices.

Nick

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Hello Sara,

A very warm welcome to SGL ;) I started off with binoculars, a very good place to start. Here's some info to start you off with your understanding.

My binoculars are 10x50. The first number is the amount of magnification you get, the second number is the diameter in millimeters of the objective lens (the mirror). When you're viewing far off objects like star clusters, galaxies and so on, the larger the objective lens, the more light it is going to collect and so the better your views. However, this larger the objective lens, the heavier the binoculars. The larger and more powerful the binoculars you purchase, the more likely you will need a tripod to use them with.

My 10x50s are the perfect size (in my opinion) for the complete novice. They are light enough to hold up for extended amounts of time and have just enough power. They will give you excellent views of many, many objects. You'll be able to spend hours just lying on a sunlounger, sweeping the summer and winter milky way. You'll be able to resolve the disk of Jupiter and some moons either side.

My advice would be to get some a little bit more powerful than 10x50s. You'll be craving more aperture (that's the name for the 'size' of the objective lens) and might get fed up quickly with just 'entry level' binoculars. Have a look at these:

Celestron

Helios

I'd go for a 20x80 or a 15x70 - just that little step up to keep you satisfied for longer. Make sure, if you have enough budget, to get a tripod. There'd be no point getting the more powerful and heavier binos without something to support them on. They will suffer alot from shake as your arms tire from holding them up - this will ruin the view and you won't see anything! :)

Get yourself a good star map. You could just buy an astronomy magazine for now and get to grips with some open clusters, position of the planets, the constellations.

I hope that helps you for now and gives you something to be going on with :)

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10x50s here - Opticron Imagix and they are brill but have a talk with Steve at First Light Optics, he will give you solid advice, wont pressure you and will give you a firts rate service - he'll also probably be the least expensive as well.

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