binoculars for astronomy. Bushnell? Anyone heard of it?
April 11, 2010 by
Filed under Bushnell Binoculars
I’ve been doing some research lately, and I found most of the people talking about Orion, and Celestron. Personally I think I’d prefer Orion, Orion’s scenix series 10×50 (I only like porro 10×50, or higher, maybe). Because I think celestron’s 10×50 are too ugly.
Then today, I suddenly bumped in to this Bushnell website. It is brilliant, everything is listed so clearly with the specs for all binoculars, A LOT of selections (when I say a lot, it means A LOT more then Orion’s and Celestron’s selections), and with a long background history too! It was established in 1948, with over 50 years of experience, longer then both celestron and orion! (orion was founded in 1975 and celestron is 1960)
Not only the selections and the background are pleasing, the quality and the price of those binoculars are excellent too! —-Bushnell legacy 10×50, with BAK4 coated prisms, AND 100% WATER PROOF AND FOG PROOF, eye relief of 18….Guess how much is it? 116.49!!!!!
so now, help me out experts! bushnell or orion?
By the way, If you never heard of Bushnell, here’s it’s website!
And this is the Bushnell legacy 10×50 binoc I was talking about
Or if any of you has a different suggestion, tell me! And give me a reason.. Thanks!
As a matter of fact…I own a set of Bushnell 10×50 binoculars that I bought in Bar Harbor Maine for $80. I am very pleased with them….They offer a nice wide field of view…and they are a nice all around terrain type of optical device also.
Bushnell is one of the top brands as far as I know.
The optics being equal, the best binoculars for night viewing are 7×50, because this type produces an “exit pupil” the same size as the one in the average eye when it is dark-adapted, and this gives you the brightest possible image and a wide field of view.
Binoculars larger than 50 mm can give you the same brightness at higher magnification and better detail, but they will also magnify the inevitable vibrations that come with hand-held instruments, besides being heavier and harder to handle.
Compare 7×50 with 10×50 binoculars and you will notice a dimmer and more unsteady image in the latter, with no more detail since the diameter of the objective is the same. This is acceptable to many people for the higher magnification, however.
The Bushnell’s are mean’t to be good, regularly scoring 4 or 5 star ratings on AMAZON (at least on the US amazon, none on the UK one yet) looking at the aStore’s on the astronomy section of my website.
Here’s something from Bushnell found in GOOGLE’s Patent search: http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=fD0EAAAAEBAJ
And a 2005 obituary for the company founder:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/31/obituaries/31bushnell.html
Also worth a look is the MEADE range of binoculars.. made by the same people who make the LX200 + ETX telescopes. I bought a pair of “Meade Travelview 8-24×50″ binoculars as a birthday present to myself…. and they absolutely beat the crap out of the 10×50 CARL ZEISS (from Jena) binoculars I was given one birthday when i was a kid. If you pop the badge off the front, it has a threaded bit behind it so you can attach them to a tripod to hold ‘em steady at higher magnification.
http://www.meade.com/binoculars/index.html
http://astore.amazon.com/astro_usa_jdcouk-20/detail/B000BY5Y24
http://www.telescopehouse.com/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Binoculars_23.html
Bushnell is a very respected optical company. I have a pair of Bushnell 7×50’s that I’ve had for over 30 years; the model I have is “Sportview”, which is similar to today’s “Marine” model. I use them for astronomical viewing. Personally, I like the 7X power better than the 10X because I find that I can hold 7X binoculars steady, and 10X get a bit shaky.
I own a pair f Bushnell 10X50 Binoculars and they’re an excellent pair of binoculars. They’ve got great eye relief and the optics are superb. Additionally, they’re very rugged. I’ve carried my binoculars up and down the east coast of the North American Continent observing in both the US and Canada) and they’ve held up quite well. As of this writing, they’re almost 10 years old and still performing like the day I got them.
Orion, quality and durability win out.
If you want to see the cutting edge of astronomical binos which are “true telescopic” bino’s (NOT A $100-$150 PURCHASE), take a look at the link below.