Stargazing with binoculars

Steve Tonkin explains the right way to use them to get breathtaking night-sky views

First of all: congratulations! You have chosen to use a complete, self-contained, versatile and ultra-portable observing system that you can easily set up in less than a minute, and that can show you hundreds of astronomical targets that elude your naked eye… and all for about the same cost as a single mid-range astronomical eyepiece. Why are binoculars so good? In addition to being portable and easy to set up, there's the view they give you. You get a much wider field of view than with a telescope, so it's much easier to relate what you see to the view you get with just your eyes. And the image you see is exactly the same orientation as what you see with the naked eye, so you don't have to do…

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BBC Sky at Night United Kingdom (Digital) - 1 Issue, September 2024

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