Telescope Reviews: ? Orion Giant 25x100mm = Oberwerk 25x100 IF ?

Jarrod,

If either of these "great comets" sport a long tail (let's say, 30 degrees), you will not see the whole shebang in a bino's field of view. The higher the magnification, generally the smaller the FOV. Sometimes the best tool for the job is your naked eyes (and a very dark sky site).

I thoroughly enjoy chasing comets. From a dark sky site, the 10x50's are hard to beat. I own some 25x100's but have yet to build my planned parallelogram (I have bought the parts, it's just finding the time to build...).

My gracious wife bought me my 10x50's back in 1986 when Halley's comet came thru. With the lousy maps and small FOV I had, I could not find it in suburban light pollution near Pittsburgh in my 4.25" f/10 Edmund reflector. With the binos, it was found easily. Binos will help you observe these comets sooner (and later) when they are not so (hopefully) bright and graced with long tails.

I observed Hyakutake from my suburban home in Houston in 1996. I truly regret not taking the effort to drive an hour out of town to some conservation area to view its' tail in much larger fashion.

That was before the internet. Now you can KNOW if the tail is long before you commit to taking the drive. Plan for it now.

I might also recommend getting familiar with your camera and tripod. See if you can take a few pics now (soon) of Orion or the Big Dipper (etc.). Figure out how to do that, and you'll be a step ahead if either of these comets becomes naked-eye "with tail".

There are some great comet finding maps on the web these days. For starters, I recommend Skyhounds' comet chasing page.