Binocular Astronomy

by Stephen F. Tonkin

This book contains everything an astronomer needs to know about binocular observing. The book takes an in-depth look at the instruments themselves. It has sections on evaluating and buying binoculars and binocular telescopes, their care, mounting, and accessories. In addition there is a selection of fifty fine objects to be seen with 50mm and 100mm binoculars. The advantages of using both eyes for astronomical observing are many and considerable, largely because of the way the human brain processes visual information. This book enables the astronomer to maximize those advantages.

Genres: Astronomy

284 pages, Paperback

First published November 27, 2006

Reviews

[Aprilleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty thorough book, covering everything from why you would use binoculars for astronomy, detailed information about binoculars, choosing and evaluating binoculars (quality control, particularly for the more affordable options, is depressingly poor), maintaining them (some of the information in that chapter should never be used unless you are far past the point of needing a book like this), and information about useful accessories like mounts, filters, and so forth.

There are two chapters (about half of the book) covering a nice range of deep-sky objects for 50mm binoculars (50 objects) and 100mm binoculars (100 objects). There appears to be no overlap between the two lists, although most of the objects in the first list can also be seen with a larger binocular with additional detail (anything that would fill the eyepiece of a 50mm binocular would be too big to view whole in a 100mm binocular, such as NGC 292). A few of the objects in the second list can be viewed with a 50mm binocular, although you'll see very little detail. Objects include stars, emission nebulae, planetary nebulae, reflection nebulae, galaxies, globular clusters, and open clusters.

[Marcos Shayo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic Tables

I own this little jewel called Canon 10 X 30 IS binocular and coupled with this enormous jewel of book, you have a powerful years long sights to observe. Thank you Stephen!

[Mark Yoshida · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had good tips on finding the right binoculars for astronomy use. Half the book consists of star charts specifically for binoculars, but they were not well explained so I don't know how a newbie could use them. Bibliographies at end of each substantive chapter were helpful in case further info or explanation is needed. Published in 2007, so assessments of specific binocular models may be outdated. Overall this is a good resource.