Need suggestions for Binoculars

[jiahao1986]

Hi folks,

I'm now looking for binos for school astro club use. The budget is S$600 and we need two binos. It can be 7X50 or 10X50, 8X42 also can.

So could you please recommend some binos within the budget? I see those camera shops all have some binos for sale, are any of them good enough for astro use? I browsed through some old threads and saw many folks recommending Konica Minolta series, but they seem to be discontinued already.

Many thanks for your suggestions!!!

Best regards,
Jia Hao

[kayheem]

Hi,

I suggest a 15X70mm (on suitable binocular mount) and a 8X42 or 7X50 for quick handheld sweep of the heavens.

[Meng Lee]

I had my old binos from those camera shops. I bought mine from 1st floor of Sim Lim Square. I think as long as it is porro prism type and NO ruby coatings, just simple blue coatings, that will do. BAK or BK prism is minor in differences in my opinion.

[anat]

I suggest a pair of 10x50mm binoculars. For a magnification higher than 10x, you will need a tripod/monopod.

[rlow]

1. 8x40 wide field bino Nikon, Pentax, or Celestron etc (2nd choice: 10x50)

2. 15x70 or 20x80 (Celestron, Oberwerk, Kunming, Grandeye etc) requires tripod mounted


Here's my suggested 'ideal' specs:

a. 8+ deg TFOV for 8x40, 3+ deg TFOV for 20x80
b. 60 deg AFOV (if possible)
c. 20mm eye-relief (2nd choice: min. of 15mm)
d. fully-multicoated (FMC) lens
e. Bak 4 lens (instead of Bk7)
f. waterproofed *important* (2nd choice: water resistant)
g. accepts bino mount
i. rugged central-focuser with dioptre adjustment (for one side)
j. rubber armoured construction
h. usually for some brands there is a cheaper model, medium-priced model and premium model. This has a bearing on the optical quality: sharpness to edge of field, light throughput and contrast. I would suggest to go for at least the medium-priced model if it is within the budget.

Note:
1. always do a visual inspection to check above criteria and to ensure that both light trains are correctly centred and aligned.

2. always get the club members to take proper care and handling of binos, otherwise it can be easily knocked out of optical alignment in a short period of time.

[Jim McGill]

Hi All,

You can also consider this very compact and lightweight premium bino from Vixen. In limited stock for immediate delivery. Please purchase at our eBay store if keen:
http://cgi.ebay.com.sg/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... :IT&ih=016

Cheers,
Jim, McGill.