Telescope Reviews: New Helios 10.5 X 70mm binocular.

I decided that I needed a new pair of 10x binoculars but because we have such a huge amount of choice here in England it was not going to be an easy task. I looked at all the big names Nikon, Canon, Zeiss etc but did not really like any of their offerings. Having already bought a 100mm binocular with U-mount from the Far East and was very happy with the result I decided to go with a company called Helios. The binoculars are made in Japan and come in a nice protected case, which on closer inspection does seem a bit flimsy especially the mount for the handle.. The magnification is X10.5 with a 70mm object glass and they are also fully coated through out. The body is also rubber armoured with a light green finish and they are also nitrogen filled to prevent misting, the weight of the binocular is 2.6kg. Because I need to wear glasses the eye relief is most important to me and this binocular has a very generous 23mm. The prisms are Barium crown BAK 4 and are superb with no obstructions in the field of view. The focussing is by individual eyepiece mechanisms so this type of binocular would not suite birding for instance, they also have threaded eyepiece units to accept standard 1.25” astronomical filters. The workmanship on these binoculars is also superb and the engineering is very solid and feels like a good binocular should.
The image is very clear and bright with an exit pupil of 6.6mm and with a 5.5 degree true field of view. The image is sharp all the way to the edge with no false colour on the moon or stars which show a point like structure, a good way to tell if you are going to be plagued with false colour is to look at some tree branches against a very bright background, there should be no false colour against the image of the branches. These binoculars cannot be hand held and therefore a tripod would be needed to use as a scientific tool. I am now in the process of sorting out my old DeVere tripod for use with these binoculars. They come in two varieties the 10.5x and a 15x but I decided on the lower power for sweeping views and also my other binoculars are high powered.These binoculars cost just under £300 here in England and while this might sound like an awful lot of money they should give decades of use if looked after, so in reality they are a good buy and well worth the money.

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Celestron C8
120mm ED Pro refractor.
80mm ED Pro refractor (solar observing)
Baader Herscel wedge.
Quantum 6- X20,X30 & X37 100MM binoculars.
Helios 10.5 x 70mm HD binoculars
Heq5 Pro mount.Eye pieces
Celestron ultima 2x barlow.
Numerous eyepieces.
FR/FC lens 6.3 Celestron.
2" WO Dielectric.
1/1/2" WO Dielectric.

Edited by EdZ (07/19/08 08:02 PM)