CN FORUMS ARCHIVE Telescope Reviews: First Light: Burgess 15x70 Binocular

On Sunday night (2004/4/19 UT) I was able to put the Burgess 15x70 binocular that I was fortunate enough to win at this year's NEAF to good use. I must say that I was very pleased with the results.

The Burgess 15x70 features BAK4 Porro prisms and fully multi-coated lenses. The field of view is stated as being 4.4 degrees and the eye relief 16 mm. The binocular produces an exit pupil of 4.7 millimeters and weighs in at 46 ounces. It worked quite well both mechanically and optically.

My new instrument was mounted on a Bogen tripod and Vista binocular guider. At 46 ounces the Burgess 15x70 can be hand-held but I recommend the use of a guider. The evaluation was conducted at a dark site that can approach a VLM of 6.5 magnitude on a very good night but unfortunately this was not one of them.

I was able to achieve a very tight focus. Some astigmatism was present as was to be expected. Stars began to blur at between 2/3's and 3/4's of the field radius and were quite elongated at the field edge, where there was a bit of lateral color. Certainly not bad performance for such inexpensive glasses.

I observed Venus, where some chromatic aberration was noted, and Jupiter, where all 4 Galilean moons were seen very easily, as well as numerous deep-sky objects. The Hyades and the Alpha Persei Association were quite striking as were the Sword of Orion, Collinder 70, the Double Cluster, Stock 2, M44, and Collinder 399. Galaxies such as M81, M82, M101, M51, M65, and M66 were readily visible. In fact, M81 and M82 were portrayed amazingly well. I managed to work through 1/4 of the Astronomical League's deep-sky binocular list as high clouds appeared and dispersed. Seeing the Binocular Double Cluster (NGC 6633 and IC 4756) through the Burgess was quite a treat.

My Japanese made Celestron 20x80 binocular has seen comparatively little use since I purchased an Orion ShortTube 80 achromat in 1998. Although the larger and much heavier Celestron giant binocular should clearly outperform the Burgess offering, I believe I'll be parting with the 20x80 and doing much more binocular observing in the coming nights with my newest optical toy.

Dave Mitsky

Edited by Dave Mitsky (04/21/04 05:01 AM)

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