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Binoculars beat my telescope for backyard stargazing hands down
I used to think you needed a big telescope to see anything good from my yard in Tucson. Got a cheap 4.5 inch reflector last year and fought with it for months. The tripod shook every time I touched it and I could never find things fast before they moved out of view. Then my neighbor let me borrow his 15x70 binoculars one clear night in October. I pointed them at the Orion Nebula and saw more detail than my telescope ever showed me. The field of view is so much wider and I can actually scan across the sky without losing my target. Now I only use the telescope for the moon and planets when the seeing is steady. Has anyone else ditched their scope for binoculars and found they see more?
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dylanward1mo ago
Wait are you really ready to give up on telescopes that fast though? A wobbly tripod and a cheap scope don't mean all telescopes are bad, you just had a rough setup.
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william_miller18d ago
@blairwhite you mentioned you saw more double stars with binos in one night than a month with the Dob... what was the actual Dob you had before? I'm wondering if it was a cheap department store thing or actually a decent scope, because the jump from a shaky setup to good binos is real but I've also seen people give up on telescopes entirely after one bad night with a dodgy mount. Different kinds of observing too, binos are great for sweeping but a good Dob still kills on faint fuzzies when the sky is dark enough.
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blairwhite1mo ago
15x70s are the sweet spot for sure. I got a pair of Celestron Skymasters last summer and I swear I've seen more double stars in one night than my old 6 inch Dob showed me in a month. @dylanward is right that cheap gear can sour you on the whole thing, but honestly I think half of my stargazing time was just wrestling with a wobbly scope mount. Now I just grab the binos and sit in a lawn chair like a lazy astronomer.
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