Goshawk Model

Posted in Aircraft Model by admin on July 10, 2010

Seeking Binoculars for Birdwatching?

I've become an armchair birder: my house of a year has a deck facing an amazing vista of an whole ecosystem teeming with unfamiliar creatures (birds!) and I've become fascinated with staring an them and observing their behaviors.

My current glasses, a $200 Nikon 10x50 6.5° Action model, are fine for starry nights but have been pressed into service for birding but seem lacking for this purpose. At 150-200 meters I am straining to see details of my goshawk and other birds around my pond property.

I suspect that my initial impulse - a larger item like a 14x54 pair - is both too expensive and altogether wrong. Can you advise me on good birding binos which are not too expensive (not >> $300) and yet are an appropriate step-up over my Nikon 10x50 ??

THANKS!

10 x 50 are the best general purpose binos around and as you say are excellent for astronomy.
You can get 20 x 80 binos for $300 and even less but you need to get a mount for them. It's easy enough to make one and most 20 x80s have a tripod bracket screw so you can use a heavy duty photo tripod with them.
Celestron and many other firms do them. Most have the same optics from Synta who own both Celestron and Skywatcher and supply optics to hundreds of comapanies around the world.
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=20+x+80+binoculars&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=13684964446012082736&ei=J5WWTJKcC8_54gbHsLTsBA&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQ8wIwAA . . . . . .
http://www.binoculars.com/binoculars/astronomy-binoculars/20x80supergiantastronomicalbinocular.cfm . . . . .
You might be better though buying a spotting scope if you want detail at long range like 200 meters.
A short focus refractor for astronomy is a good choice. They take standard 1 1/4 inch eyepieces so you can vary the power and with a diagonal mirror you get an upright image but reversed left to right or you can buy an erecting eyepiece.
An 80mm short focus refractor from Skywatcher is a good choice. It has good performance and is a very popular telescope for astronomy.
Using powers up to 40x is OK for birding but as the light drops using any more than that will give too dim an image to be useful with an 80mm aperture.
Here's one on a tripod with a diagonal and a finder scope. It's about the same price in dollars in the USA.
http://www.pulsar-optical.co.uk/prod/telescopes/sky-watcher/short-tuberefractors/startravel-80/eq1.html . . . . . .