Celestron 25-125 X 80 Zoom? Any good?

[johntrob]

Does anyone have any experience with this Binocular:

Celestron SkyMaster 25 -125x80 Zoom Binoculars 71020

Thanks,

John

[scogyrd]

I've never used a zoom binocular but I've read in quite a few places that they're not very good.

Just Say No to Zoom Binoculars – Big Binoculars

[johntrob]

Thanks,

That reinforces my gut feeling about Zoom items.

John

[NGC404]

Ok if you like looking at ships out at Sea

But not much good for anything else I would guess

[BinocularSky]

Zoom binoculars were invented as a gimmick to stimulate sales. If you consider the considerable problems of maintaining collimation with a zoom mechanism, you begin to see the problems. At the 125x in the one you mentioned, the collimation tolerance is in the order of 15 arcsec. It's only about an arcminute at 30x, but see if you can name even one high quality fixed-magnification centre-focus 30x binocular. There is a reason: It would be a feat of technological brilliance to have a centre-focus zoom binocular hold collimation, even if it could start with zero error -- to make it would be prohibitively expensive.

A decent zoom binocular has yet to be made. The end.

[johntrob]

I appreciate the inputs. I ended up picking up a pair of Kronos 26 X 70 from Ebay.

Will be home in a week, then see what the rest of the story is.

Thanks,

john