Yes, it's true, you can enjoy a lot of astronomy with nothing more than a pair of binoculars. In fact, if you're new to the astronomy hobby, binoculars is definitely the least expensive way to get started.

In a way, I started with binocular astronomy (well -- monocular astronomy). I was probably not yet in high school when my parents bought a little 7 power 50mm diameter telescope on a table-top stand. I think it was called a Moon Watch telescope. It was modest in size, but the optics in it were excellent.

And sweeping the little telescope through the Milky Way was always an adventure. I could actually see the Milky Way in those days from my small town backyard.

That little telescope was basically 1/2 of a pair of 7x50 binoculars. Yet it kept me spellbound for a year of two. It eventually became a finder scope on an 8" Dobsonian.

A good place to begin would be a quality pair of 50mm binoculars, preferably not more than 10 power. Bushnell makes some hardy binoculars in that range.

Binocular Basics

Binoculars are basically two telescopes mounted side by side, and aligned to that one can look at a distant object with both eyes. Binoculars use prisms in both barrels to deliver an upright image to the user.

The most common binoculars use what's called porro prisms, and lead to a binocular with objectives offset from the eyepieces. Roof prism binoculars, more compact, look literally like two straight through telescopes mounted side by side.

Compact is nice, particularly for much daytime observing. But just as with telescopes, binoculars with bigger diameters show more.

So I can easily hand hold the 7x50s, but the 16x50s really need to be tripod mounted.

I show these because I recommend that for astronomy, you start with a pair of 7x50s. It's really incredible what you can see with them.

If you have something smaller, say 35mm or 40mm diameter ones, by all means give them a try. But you will see dimmer objects with 7x50s, and they are really not a very expensive item, being available for less than $100. You can certainly pay more, and get better quality to boot. But even moderately expensive ones perform very well. Just avoid the least expensive unless you can actually look through them before buying.

Bigger is Better?

This image shows the 7x50s beside a much bigger 15x70 pair of binoculars. Recall that 15x70 means the binoculars magnify 15 times, and have objects of 70mm (nearly 3 inches).

I must tell you that when I first saw the 15x70s, they made my mouth water. And when pointing them to the sky, I wasn't disappointed. The Moon is rather spectacular through the 15x70s. The Andromeda galaxy, though a ghostly image, spreads across the field of view.

But recall what I said earlier, anything over 10 power simply doesn't provide steady views when hand held. I've tried propping my elbows on the cab of my pickup, leaning against the corner of my workshop, all manner of bracing. In the end, the 15x70s really only work well when on a tripod.

The Big Binocular Tradeoff

Here's another view of the 7x50s and the 15x70s. In this view, you can clearly see the considerable difference in their size.

Now you can get a hint of the increased fatigue you'd get swinging a large pair of binoculars around for a couple of hours, versus a more manageable pair of 7x50s.

I particularly like the Pleiades and the double cluster in Perseus through binoculars. And my best views of comets is usually through binoculars.

You'll be able to check on Jupiter's 4 biggest moons, and see their relative positions change night to night.

Sweeping through the Milky Way, you'll find many rich star fields that are dazzling. In fact, I like to take my binoculars out with me even when I'm star observing with my telescope. A look with the binoculars will let me easily find the object of interest, and make it easier to see where to point the telescope.

An Easy Binocular Tripod Adaptor

If you decide to get a larger pair of binoculars, 60mm or larger, you'll probably need to have some kind of tripod mount for them. Looking on the web, you can find some interesting variations of the parallelogram type mountings.

Since I'm primarily a telescope user, I'm not interested in a binocular mount that takes more time to set up than my telescope. But here's a very simple mount you can make, using your camera tripod.

It's a simple L bracket, available at the hardware store. One with legs about 4" long would be sufficient.

One leg is mounted to the tripod, the other to the front of the binoculars.

Binoculars on Tripod

Here you see the 15x70 binoculars mounted to the tripod via the L bracket. The center post of the binoculars often has a cap that can be removed, revealing a 1/4" screw thread. This is easy to use with the L bracket to make a simple and inexpensive tripod for your huskier set of binoculars.

I usually have the L bracket mounted so that the vertical component is nearest the tripod handle. These brings the binoculars toward me, and the tripod interferes less with observing.

Here's a few comments from my personal experience. While I mentioned that moderate priced binoculars can be good performers, I'll give some examples of what you'll find.

My 7x50 binoculars have the brand name Compass. I'm not sure you can find them anymore, and that might have been a store-brand name put on binoculars manufactured by someone else. None-the-less, they've always worked very well, delivering crisp images.

My 16x50's are Bushnell binoculars. Very easy to quickly focus, and generally I'm happy with them. The right side, however, doesn't give as precise an image as the left. A more expensive pair would not likely have that problem.