Using Binoculars For Astronomy

For the most part, when people think about astronomy they picture hobbyists with huge, mounted telescopes that have high zoom ratios, are quite expensive, and difficult to use. What most people don't realize is that a good pair of binoculars is actually the viewing tool of choice for most amateur astronomers.

While both actually have their strong and weak points, knowing the differences between the two can help you decide which viewing tool you'll wind up needing for yourself.

First off, binoculars generally provide a wider field of vision than telescopes. The biggest advantage to a telesope is the sheer range they can reach. However, this improved range narrows the field of vision of telescopes to a small patch of the sky, usually restricted to a single star or a cluster of closely packed stars.

Binoculars offer a better view of your subject and the surrounding sky as well.

Second is the matter of portability. Telescopes are often mounted on tripods, are heavy, and difficult to carry around and set up. Binoculars are light, durable, and easy to lug around everywhere, even slung around your neck.

Third is the factor of viewing angle. Binoculars translate and expand images directly, whereas telescopes usually invert the images or reflect them off a small mirror, requiring that you view telescopes at an odd angle. This often leads to some difficulties for people who don't like bending over to view something that's actually to the left or right of what they're facing.

Aiming a pair of binoculars at a desired subject is much easier because you just point the binoculars in that direction, period. This is also handy in case you want to suddenly shift your view from something you're observing to something that suddenly pops up, like a shooting star. Telescopes, being mounted, lack this agility.

Then of course, there is the matter of your budget. A very good pair of binoculars will still cost a little bit less than an average telescope. Good telescopes are expensive. This cost translates into durability as well; you can drop a set of binoculars on a small rock and it will probably survive the experience, but because of the weight of a telescope, having it spill off it's tripod is a sure way to schedule a trip to buy a replacement.

Lastly, you don't need the range of a telescope to view most of the things you'll be looking at in astronomy. Granted that there ARE quite a few targets outside the range of binoculars, and these will require telescopes, but by and large things like comets, the constellations, the moon, and other planets can be viewed comfortably with a good set of high amplification binoculars.