Telescope Reviews: Oberwerk 9x60mm or 11x56mm decision..

I spent a fair amount of time on Saturday night comparing my (newly acquired) 12x60s against my 10x50s and my 15x70s.

Initially, I had planned to advise you that even the 12x60s were too close to your 10x50s to warrant spending the money. (I only purchased mine due to an odd happenstance that's too complicated to explain now.) But after my comparisons, I concluded that 10x50, 12x60, and 15x70 are each quite different from the next, and 12x60 in some ways is a rather nice compromise.

15x70s really make all kinds of stuff pop out that's subtle at best in the 10x50s. But on the other hand, they're *much* bigger and heavier, harder to hold steady, and their narrow true field of view begins to be a real problem (for me, anyway). I can find just about anything instantly in my 10x50s; with the much smaller true FOV of the 15x70s, I often have to hunt around for a while.

With the 12x60s, I found most things quite quickly, and the views (not surprisingly) were more or less halfway to the 15x70s.

All the differences that I noted were subjective; there's no particular detail that I noted in the 15x70s that I didn't also see in the 10x50s. And subjective differences are hard to describe -- but I'll try anyway.

My last subject was M31. This was at my country home in the yellow zone -- skies far from pristine -- but it was late enough, and M31 was high enough, to give very fine views nonetheless.

I started with the 10x50s. M31 was bright and grand as always, and I could see M110 easily -- but only because I know what it looks like. A beginner would no doubt have thought at first that it was a hallucination. I couldn't tell easily which of the "stars" on the other side of M31 was actually the companion galaxy M32. (Remember, all this was handheld, so the views weren't tack sharp.)

In the 12x60s, M31 had much more power and presence, and M110 was quite unmistakable. Moreover, M32 now stood out quite clearly as a fuzzy spot. Switching back to the 10x50s, and knowing exactly what to look for, it was then quite apparent that M32 was fuzzier in these binos as well.

The 15x70s were a whole new world. M31 was overwhelming, appearing (though it's an illusion) to stretch all the way across the field. M110 was not merely readily visible, but even showed a bit of structure. The sharp edge of M31 on the M110 side was quite apparent, and I might have seen hints of the inner dust lane. M32 was so bright and large that it was hard to believe I'd had trouble seeing it in my 10x50s.

Since I was observing from a lounge chair, hand-holding wasn't really a problem with any of the binos, even the 15x70s.

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Tony Flanders

First and foremost observing love: naked eye.
Second, binoculars.
Last but not least, telescopes.
And I sometimes dabble with cameras.

Edited by Tony Flanders (09/21/09 06:56 AM)