Why don't birdwatchers use giant binoculars instead of telescopes? Surely two eyes are better than one.
[QUOTE=mgsphilip]Why don't birdwatchers use giant binoculars instead of telescopes? Surely two eyes are better than one.[/QUOTE]
Because we are not giants.
There are some excellent instruments with 80mm objectives from Docter, Kowa and Miyauchi but they are heavy and expensive and all have the disadvantage (for birding) of individual focussing.
Before settling on a scope I considered the option of 15x60 binoculars but decided that 15x magnification was not quite enough. There is a 20x60 binocular from Pentax, which is inexpensive and allegedly optically very good, albeit with a rather narrow field of view.
Apart from this I know of no others with central focussing.
John