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Picked a $40 pair of 10x50 binoculars over a $150 starter scope and I'm still second guessing it
I stood in the parking lot of a Sportsman's Warehouse in Boise for like 20 minutes trying to decide between a cheap 70mm refractor and a pair of 10x50 binoculars, and I went with the binoculars because everyone on here says that's the smart first buy. Two months later I've logged Jupiter's moons and the Andromeda smudge from my patio, but I keep wondering if I gave up too early on the scope life. Did anyone else start with binos and stick with them, or did you cave and buy a scope within the first year?
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the_gavin16d ago
The 10x50s have a spec the cheap 70mm scopes usually can't touch: a 5mm exit pupil, which means the full light cone hits your eye. Most of those $150 refractors ship with a 25mm eyepiece that gives you like 28x, and a .5 degree field. Finding Andromeda in that is actual work. What you built from your patio is a finder, and that's not a waste. Get a decent star chart, learn the sky with both eyes open, then buy a scope in a year with your list of targets already made. People who skip the bino step spend their first month just hunting for stuff.
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