![]() There's much more to look at in the night sky than random stars. Similarly, in a light-polluted suburb you may be able to see only a couple hundred stars unaided, but binoculars for astronomy will cut through the murk to show you more than you could see with your unaided eye from the top of Mount Everest. But when you use even modest 7x35 binoculars, that number rises to roughly 100,000 stars! Consider this: on a clear, dark night out in the country, your eyes can see up to 3,000 stars, give or take. No matter what binoculars you just dug out of the closet, they'll be a great addition to your stargazing sessions. Most of the time, though, the field of view is about 5° to 8° wide: about as much sky as is covered by a golf ball or squash ball held at arm's length. (The conversion is simple: 1° is 52 feet at 1,000 yards.)īinoculars' fields of view vary from about 10° (the size of the Big Dipper's bowl, or the size of your fist held at arm's length) for wide-angle models, to a mere 2° (the width of your thumb at arm's length) for high-power models. It's expressed in feet at a distance of 1,000 yards, or, more commonly these days, in degrees. These give the field of view, which is how wide a scene you'll see. You may also find more numbers below the magnification-x-aperture rating. The first number is the magnification, or "power." The second is the aperture, the diameter of the large front lenses measured in millimeters. On the back you'll see two numbers separated by an "x". There may be also information on the width of the field of view.Īlan MacRobert Understanding Your First Pair On the back of virtually all binoculars, you'll find the magnification (10x, in this case) and the diameter of the front lenses in millimeters (50, in this case). Moreover, in binoculars for astronomy everything is right-side up and presented correctly, not upside down and/or mirror-reversed.įinally, there's another big plus for binoculars: you may already have a pair in the back of a closet (or know someone who can loan you a pair). They let you use both eyes, providing surer, more natural views. They also give a much wider view than a telescope does, making celestial objects easier to find. But they're lighter, much easier to take outside, use, and put away, and less expensive. Granted, they're smaller and give lower magnification. Compared to a telescope, binoculars for astronomy actually have certain advantages. What if I told you that, within limits, you can find galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae without a telescope? If you've got an ordinary pair of binoculars lying around, astronomical observing is just a clear night away.īeginning stargazers often overlook binoculars for astronomy, but experienced observers keep them close at hand. But what if you don't have a telescope or binoculars for astronomy? Surely you want to see these objects in real life. If you're new to astronomy, you might have already flipped through magazines like Sky & Telescope marveling at the pictures of celestial objects.
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