Binoculars Porro Prism

What astronomy binoculars would be best for me?

hello, im 13 years old and i’m extremely interested in astronomy. it is my birthday soon and my parents said that i could have some good astronomy binoculars. i would really love to have a telescope, but the really good ones cost thousands i bet, so i have to settle for binoculars(Porro prisms). nothing over the price of £250 though. i would like a pair with a tripod, and i would like to be able to see the surface of the moon in detail, star clusters, and nebulae. i would reallllly love to see Jupiter’s bands and galilean moons also, but is that possible with binoculars. I was wondering, what magnification and aperture would be best for this, and can you give me some links to websites please.
thanks for your help everyone.

I’ve been using various binoculars for astronomy since I was 16 years old and have found that 10x50s work the best for me. I used 7x50s for years and liked them a lot, but found a significant improvement when I switched to 10x50s. That little bit of extra magnification increased what I could see significantly, without increasing the weight or bulk or ability to hand-hold. I also own 15x70s, but find I maybe use them once for every hundred times I use the 10x50s: to big, heavy, and hard to hand-hold. I’ve never like binoculars on a tripod: awkward to move and hard to get underneath to observe — a small telescope with diagonal works much better for me.

There are now some quite nice little telescopes coming out of China for very reasonable prices on a mini-Dobsonian mount which is much much better than the old altazimuth and equatorial mounts on most “beginner’s telescopes.” Orion U.S.A. has several of these, but I don’t think they’re available in the U.K. SkyWatcher has two scopes in the same range on similar mounts which _are_ available in the U.K. and have gotten good reviews, the Heritage 76 and Heritage 130:

http://www.opticalvision.co.uk/astronomical_telescopes/sky-watcher/dobsonians

If you look further down this page, you’ll find the SKYLINER-150P at £199. It’s a full-sized scope and I highly recommend it. I own the Orion version of it, and it is _excellent_ for all kinds of astronomical observation. You can probably get it for a slightly better price if you shop around a bit.

Here are a few web pages with good information on beginner’s telescopes:

http://www.gaherty.ca/tme/TME0702_Buying_a_Telescope.pdf

http://www.scopereviews.com/begin.html

http://observers.org/beginner/j.r.f.beginner.html

For more advanced information, read Phil Harrington’s Star Ware, 4th edition (Wiley).

You’ll get the greatest value for your money with a Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mount, such as these:

http://www.telescope.com/control/category/~category_id=dobsonians/~pcategory=telescopes/~VIEW_INDEX=0/~VIEW_SIZE=1000000

http://www.skywatchertelescope.net/swtinc/product.php?class1=1&class2=106

Buy from a store which specializes in telescopes and astronomy, either locally or online; don’t buy from department stores, discount stores or eBay as mostly what they sell is junk. Find your local astronomy club and try out different telescopes at one of their star parties:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/organizations

I strongly recommend that beginners steer clear of astrophotography until they have learned their way around the sky. Astrophotography is by far the most expensive and difficult area of amateur astronomy.

Many people who buy telescopes have no idea how to find interesting things to observe. A good introduction to finding things is NightWatch by Terence Dickinson (Firefly). A more advanced book is Star Watch by Phil Harrington (Wiley).

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