Hi Everyone!
I've been enjoying my new binoculars (even started doing a bit of bird watching! Happened upon a hummingbird the other day and I'm addicted!)
Now, I've wanted to purchase a telescope for quite some time...but, for now, I think I'd like something that would have various uses...so I was thinking of a relatively inexpensive spotting scope (since they have the potential for fairly decent magnification, and large objective lenses)...but, I'm wondering about some of the "big mutha" binoculars! I've seen 15x70's all the way up to 25x100s in a price range that would be "do-able" for me ($300ish).....
Does anyone have anything like this or has anyone used them? What are your opinions? Thoughts? Observations?(no pun intended!)
Thanks!
Most of the cheap, big binoculars that I've tried suffer from poor eye-relief and, usually, poor collimation. Astro-Physics (yeah, the guys who make the hyper-expensive refractors that you have to wait years to get) have introduced 10.5x70 and 15x70 binox, and the prices on their website are only $375 and $385, respectively. A friend owns one of these (I forget which), and I thought it was better than others that I've seen in this same price area. I could see the entire field while wearing glasses.
You may be disappointed by using a cheap spotting scope for astronomy. At low power it may be OK, but at the high end of its zoom range (most cheap scopes have a non-interchangeable zoom eyepiece) you'll see large amounts of chromatic aberration and a generally soft image. Sorry to be so negative. My Swarovski ATS 65 HD scope does OK for astronomy within the capability of the available eyepieces -- but it's not a cheap scope. I bought a used TV-85 off Astromart, and it's so good, I haven't done any further astro viewing with the Swaro. I have larger scopes, of course (up to 12.5-inch), but there are times when I just want to look at the Moon or Jupiter, and the TV-85 is quick to set up. The star images are so good, I often like to look at them merely to admire the optical quality. Under a very dark sky, the TV-85 does better than you might expect with faint fuzzies. It'll pull in galaxies as faint as mag 12.