A I binocular set

BAK-4 seem to be a very important factor(standard of quality) for binocular prism's according to Tom Mulcahy one of the local lads here, he's an expert in that field, it should be stamped somewhere on the body of the binocualrs
Charles

Hi, welcome aborad, it is always good to see more beginers finding there way here!

I spent years observing with just binoculars before I managed to save up for my first scope. It really is amazing how much you can see with Binoculars. I have seen more clusters than you could shake a big stick at (both open and globular), Nebulae (even planetary nebulae like M27 for example) and galaxies. My favourite being the galaxy M33 (the pin wheel) which is so big and spread out that it is invisible in most telescopes but I can see it easily in my 10x50 binoculars on a dark night (even from Maynooth which is quite close to Dublin).

I got my Bionoculars fom Lidl last Christmas or there about on one of their special offers. They are 10x50s and fully coated. I ahve never had as nice a pair and they only cost me 19 Euro!!!

Having said that, that is the kind of offer that only comes round once in a life time so the AI offer sounds good. A friend of mine bought it about 5 years back and I though that the binoculars were of very good quality. I don't know if they are still the same as the ones they used to give out but they were good then so they probably still are.

I also HIGHLY recoment the Colins Gem book. My copy has been through the wars over the past 10 years or so but despite the fact that the deges are getting a bit frayed I still use it all the time and can safel say that it is the best few bob I ever spent on astronomy stuff.

When it comes ot free software I find the freeware Cartes du Ciel very good: www.stargazing.net/astropc/

Bart B.

Hello there,
if I can add something...
I got my binoculas from Aldi a year ago. They are 8-24 (zoom) by 50's, fully coated optics, anti-glare, rubber gripped etc etc for €25. I can get a cheap sturdy tripod for about €40, and the books are available at a cheap price anywhere. So, for less than what A.I. can offer, I reckon that this is the better deal.

The only problem readers, is when is Aldi going to repeat this again! But they did back in November. Also, its no harm to keep an eye for such a product in the buy and sell for example. Someone probably bought one for €25, they're worth more, and will put in an asking price of e.g. €40!

:roll:

You know what I mean!

Seanie.

I got my binoculas from Aldi a year ago. They are 8-24 (zoom) by 50's, fully coated optics, anti-glare, rubber gripped etc etc for €25.

This is something that I have been meaning to ask. Are zoom binoculars any good? I never see them mentioned in any articles about binocular astronomy but I always thouht that they might be very handy - using lower magnification to find an object and then zooming in for a closer look.
Are there any drawbacks? Do you lose clarity?

Hi lionsden,

Generally it is not advisable to get zoom binoculars. The optical quality is not considered to be as good as 'fixed magnification' binoculars (I'm not sure of the technical reasons for this, I drew this conclusion from various postings and articles about binoculars for astronomy I've been reading)

Here's another short article about bincoulars for astronomy that you might find interesting;

www.irishastronomy.com/bg2.shtml

John.

With this being the case with zoom binos, what's the largest useful magnication? I've seen ads for some really huge ones (eg. x125) and I realise that with these it would be extremely hard to find anything, but then, isn't the searching half the fun?