Telescope Reviews: Re: Choosing Between These Binoculars for a newbie

I'm a newbie too, but so far I've had great luck with www.astronomybinoculars.com. They have great customer service and a good selection of products. Like you said, the shipping will be a pain, but at least you'll have more equipment geared specifically towards astronomy to choose from as well as good quality control.

I found this article invaluable when making my purchase. Easy to understand for newbies and contains a lot of good information on what to look for when purchasing a binocular.

I grabbed the Garrett 9X60 LW binocular, and it's been an excellent starting point. I've been able to spot several Messier and NGC objects even in light polluted skies.

I haven't had experience with zoom binoculars but everything I've read has said that they aren't really precise enough for astronomy. I'm sure some of the folks on this board can shed more light on that issue than I can.

Edit: One other thing, while the high power binoculars (magnification > 10x) are tempting I can already tell that starting with a low power one will be a good choice. I'm just figuring out how to "star hop" and recognize specific formations, it's pretty difficult at times and I can tell that it would be even more difficult with the smaller field of view conferred by high power binoculars.

Edited by Noble (07/01/09 03:01 PM)

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