Telescope Reviews: Re: Celestron Skymasters 25x100?

Recently I've purchased these binos. The first time I used them I didn't like them so much. They were difficult to focus accurately, and I couldn't get good images; but I think that the problem was mainly due to they need an unusual long time for temperature re-equilibration, and I had no experience working with binos without central focuser. However, last weekend I had time to test them from a very good place, 2000 m above the sea level and about 150 Km away from my city. During two nights I have been observing and comparing images with my 25cm LX200 and other binoculars (20x80). Well, I found the images more than acceptable, by far better than those with 20x80. I was able to locate quite hard objects for binos. Particularly, I remember NGC 6749 and NGC 6804 in Aquila, or NGC 6535 in Ophiuchus, which I had never observed before with binoculars. The contrast is very good. When they are well focused, stars are quite sharp and you can easily split "close" (for binos, naturally) double stars (<15"). Some small planetary nebula (NGC 7009 or NGC 6572) are easily differentiated from stars. The views of M33 (spiral structure), the Helix (unusually well defined) or the double cluster (full of stars, impressive) were wonderful. I enjoyed these two nights as when I just started to introduce myself in astronomy, and everything was new. Last week I installed a 8x50 finder and adapted the binos to a small altazimutal tripod with slow motions from an old telescope. The apparent field, 3º, makes them hard to point (identifying the field you want in regions like Cygnus or Scutum is a nightmare without finder), so I decided to install the finder and I must confess that I have used it more times than I really need it. It is a good help. Well, this weekend I hope to use them again...

Edited by EdZ (04/30/04 01:21 PM)

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