My Next Binocular (1 Viewer)

I just got my new Edmund Scientific's Scientifics catalog and have found a new pair of binoculars to lust over...

The Carson Super Zoom 20x-80x Binoculars! They can be mine for only $139.95 plus 99 cents for shipping.

Or perhaps I should save money and get the "United States Air & Space Depot" Sea & Field Binoculars with a "50 Mile Range" for only $19 plus $6 shipping and handling and $1 for priority processing. (These were on a flyer I received with something I bought.) These folks also offer a 25,000 Mile Range World-Wide Radio - "A Giant Ear to the Entire Universe."

I think of PT Barnum often.

Seriously, if the Carson 20-80x zooms only had an IS feature <g>!

Clear skies, Alan

AlanFrench said:

"50 Mile Range"

Click to expand...

Someday I'll have to let these guys look at some galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, which are visible even in my cheap Orion Vista 10x50.

Actually, it's really a fun catalog. More so now than in the past. The current catalog seems aimed at inquisitive kids who are interested in science. Nothing wrong with that. There are lots of things in it that will pique their curiosity and educate them to boot. My catalogue is the Fall issue and I can't find those bins you describe in it. There are some half decent Celestron 25 x 100 bins for $399.00 and they even throw in a free $99.00 tripod for them while they last. Anybody looking for a 3 dimensional bird scope?

A few years back, they carried some good books on optics and even published some that they wrote. They were quite informative. I have their "All About Optics" by Sam Brown. It is Astronomy Oriented. They currently have a great bargain on their "Astroscan" telescope at $199.00 I'm seriously thinking of buying one just to see How it works with a quality eyepiece like my Televue 24mm Panoptic. There is a fine selection of telescopes and microscopes but I'm afraid it isn't birding oriented so occasionaly a cheap bino will sneak in.

Bob

Hi Bob,
Here's an old review of the Astroscan if you're interested.
http://www.telescopes.uk.com/Astroscan.htm
Clear skies !

Alan,

It's sad that they advertize such unuable instruments, that's in my opinion real unserious marketing. Even the lowest power is too high for that kind of binocular.

Regards, Patric

We own an Astroscan scope. It's only usable at the lowest possible powers, and it's fiendishly difficult to point accurately. The peep-sight attachment is useless. I have a red-dot finder that I bought at RTMC that I want to try on it. One great thing about the Astroscan: a couple of times my wife (it's her scope) has set it up on a low tripod at public star parties, and little kids like looking through it. Children younger than, say, 7, have trouble even seeing the moon through a standard telescope, but they like looking through the Astroscan.

I first became acquainted with the Astroscan about 12 years ago or so when an annular eclipse of the sun traveled across southern New York State. I traveled north on Interstate 81 and stopped at roadside rest near Cortland NY to view the eclipse. There were about 40 likeminded people there waiting for it. An older couple had an Astroscan set up on a picnic table. The scope had a reflector over the eypiece and it showed an enlarged image of the sun as it progressed through the eclipse. It was the star of the show. The people were fascinated watching it. The man operating it would give it a little nudge every minute or so to keep it aligned with the sun. His wife kept busy making peanut butter and ritz cracker sandwiches for whoever wanted them.

The scope is designed for widefield views of the milky way and large objects like the moon. It should do OK on Saturn and Jupiter, the Andromeda Galaxy, Pleiedes, the Double Cluster and other open clusters but it's short focal length precludes powers
much in excess of 50X.. I'm sure it takes a different technique to efficiently find your object. I'm curious how my wide field eyepieces would do on it.

Thanks for the comments and the website.

Bob

Actually, I bought my first binoculars (7x50) from the Edmund Scientific Company in 1968 for about $35, and they served very well until I dropped them down the cellar stairs. Later I replaced them with Nikons, which were of course much better. But for a 17-year-old kid with no money that company was a godsend and put me on the right road. I'm still birding 40 years later.