Miaplacidus
02-12-2012, 01:05 AM
I bought these for birding, but I've just come in from using these new binocs on the Moon and Jupiter. Maybe it's my incipient Parkinson's, but I have to say image stabilization makes these better than my traditional 10 x 50s. They easily allowed me to see three of Jupiter's moons tonight as a crisp trio of steady pinpricks of light, all in a row. And the planet was a stable round disc, not a roving blob. The moon really pops with crisp detail, too. The field is very flat in these binoculars, and meandering through clusters with IS turned on is a joy. Unfortunately I got clouded out before I could do a decent evaluation with M42 and the trap, but once again I was impressed by the pin point clarity of steady stars amid the gaseous nebula. All this with me standing up, too, so things would be even better if I were seated.
These binos are very light too (only 652g), so they're easy to handhold for a decent amount of time.
The eyecups are good when used, but with them folded down the eye relief is enough for me to use them with my glasses on, which is definitely a boon for me — I hate having to push up the specs and reacquire a target through binoculars.
The field of view is 5 degrees, which isn't as generous as some other IS binos. And the exit pupil is only 3 mm (which seems to be pretty standard on IS binoculars for some reason). And only the eye lenses come with caps, which seems a bit funny to me...
But I reckon anyone thinking of some binoculars for a combination of astro and daytime use should definitely check out (and maybe put on their Christmas wish list) a pair with built in image stabilization.
I have no affiliation, I promise. But I am becoming a bit of a Canon fanboy.
Cheers,
Brian.
These binos are very light too (only 652g), so they're easy to handhold for a decent amount of time.
The eyecups are good when used, but with them folded down the eye relief is enough for me to use them with my glasses on, which is definitely a boon for me — I hate having to push up the specs and reacquire a target through binoculars.
The field of view is 5 degrees, which isn't as generous as some other IS binos. And the exit pupil is only 3 mm (which seems to be pretty standard on IS binoculars for some reason). And only the eye lenses come with caps, which seems a bit funny to me...
But I reckon anyone thinking of some binoculars for a combination of astro and daytime use should definitely check out (and maybe put on their Christmas wish list) a pair with built in image stabilization.
I have no affiliation, I promise. But I am becoming a bit of a Canon fanboy.
Cheers,
Brian.