Binocular Stargazing 101: Essential Tips - with Celestron SkyMaster Pro ED - Cosmos Safari

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think a combination of the 7x50s to you know,
initially scan through the skyand you'll have that wider field
of view, and if you findsomething that you notice you're
interested in, that's when youcan jump up here to the 15x70 or
the 20x80 to look more closely.
But the scanning of the skyitself these 7x50s are my

(00:23):
favorite.
I laid on my back the othernight.
I scanned through the sky and Ilooked at, you know, patches of
stars.
I found some satellites that Iwas able to actually track,
along with with the binoculars,which is awesome.
So the first thing you need tothink about when you're outside

(00:47):
under the sky is what is it thatyou're wanting to look for?
Now?
The obvious thing in the sky,of course, right now is the moon
.
Right, I thought it would beimportant to discuss how the
different sizes of binocular aregoing to give you different
views.
I'm not going to be veryquantitative about it.
I'm going to be veryqualitative.

(01:07):
I'm going to describe thingshow they look to me and it's my
opinions about things, notnecessarily any kind of hard
facts here, um, but I've beendoing this a very long time and
I have a good understanding ofwhat looks good, so I'll do my
best to try to give you a senseof scale as well as detail.
So the first ones are the sevenby fifties.

(01:30):
Now, the first thing to do, ofcourse, is to get it in focus,
but that's easier said than done, right?
So, holding my hand over theone for my left eye, I can get
that in focus, and then I'mgoing to hold my hand over my
left binocular and I can changethe diopter.
Oh, that's smooth.
So they have this thing righthere.

(01:54):
Okay, you'll notice that thatis the dial for the diopter, and
it makes it so that this issuper tactile when you're out
here, that you can look at thisdial and try to figure it out
under, you know, dark skies witha normal binocular, or you can
just feel it with this one.
So I really like that.

(02:15):
Also, don't forget that thesecups do come out.
And because those cups come outand this is the same on all
three of these Skymaster Pro EDbinoculars First thing, once
again, is to focus your left eyeusing the big dial, and then
there's the diopter, and thatdiopter helps you to get the

(02:38):
other eye in focus, because yourprescriptions are not identical
and, by the way, if you wearglasses like I do.
You do not need to wear themwith your binocular, unless you
have an astigmatism.
Okay, and if you have anastigmatism, I recommend using
the glasses, and these work fine.
I prefer them because I do havean astigmatism.
For me, I can look through myglasses in here.
I can basically dial the cupsdown and they do stop at

(03:01):
different levels, and so I canget the exact level that works
best for me.
And once I've got that in thebinocular, unless somebody else
uses it, it'll just stay there.
It's rock solid.
I really like it.
They're really nice in thehands.
For the ones that are the 7x50s,another thing I want to remind
you about is why you're, youknow, tending to hold it here,

(03:22):
because that's where the gripsare.
Naturally, I prefer to hold thebinoculars out a little bit
farther and rest them on thebridge of my nose, because it
stabilizes them quite a bit moreand you can bring your arms in
and towards your chest and evenhold your breath if you want to
stabilize yourself a little more.
But that's about the extent ofit.
At that point, you know, withthe 7x50s I'm having to do that,

(03:45):
or the 15x70s or the 20x80s.
The magnification on these isso great you absolutely want to
have them on a tripod.
In looking through these, the15x70s are very interesting
because from the 7x50s to the15x70s, that extra boost in

(04:05):
magnification allows me to seethe details on the moon
significantly better.
Now the drawback of having tohave a tripod actually turns out
to be a really nice feature,because when you're looking at
the moon here, any little shakeswith this you are going to see,

(04:25):
and so I had been holding on tothe tripod while I was trying
to use it.
Bad idea, okay, hands off.
After you get it in focus,don't touch it.
Try to stay just enough off ofit.
The other thing I had noticedthat I was kind of surprised by
is how the moon in a binocularbecause it's a binocular is not

(04:49):
upside down inverted like youwould see in a telescope, and so
from someone who is coming frommore of a telescope background,
I'm used to having to explainabout how the moon is flipped
upside down so I can see how.
For someone who is just gettingstarted in astronomy, that can
be very difficult.
By having the binocular as yourmain observing tool for the

(05:09):
moon, you're actually getting agood amount of detail.
The brightness levels are themain thing that I see when I go
over here to the 20 by 80s.
Okay, so the level of the lightthat's coming into this one is
enough that you're getting thiscontrastiness that you don't get

(05:30):
with the other one.
So one of the other things thatI really like about the tripods
is that they have, like manytripods do, the ability to hang
some things off of them, andthat gives them the added
stability that you would desirewhen you have something like a
big pair of binoculars at thevery top of them.
For now I am just kind ofhanging the 7x50s off of this in

(05:53):
the bag and I'm also hangingoff of this one, the Ultima 80,
which is a daytime spottingscope that you would use for
birding or something.
So I've got the 20x80 here andI've got the 15 by 70 over here,
and now we're looking at thepart of the sky that is opposite

(06:14):
of the moon, and so we can seethere's a difference.
But unfortunately, at the farm,this is in the direction of the
most city lights.
So I do have a dome at, if youcan see it there, probably a
dome of city lights.
From my local town, thisdirection tends to be the most

(06:37):
clear, and that's where the moonis right now.
Looking up here, I can find somepretty bright stars and you
know, you might want to use thisto look at the different colors
of the different stars.
There are star clusters, suchas globular clusters, that you
might want to look at.
There are open clusters ofstars that you might want to

(06:58):
look at.
The stellar objects are usuallypretty easily seen in
binoculars because they'repinpoints of light.
Some nebulae are visible, butit becomes more difficult
because the actual photons arespread out as opposed to being
like a star is where they're allconcentrated.
So be careful when you'relooking at the magnitude scale

(07:20):
of nebulae.
And the same thing can go forgalaxies.
Some of them are visible in thebinocular.
They're sufficiently bright.
Their surface brightness acrossthe entire galaxy is very large
, but there are many of themthat you won't see With either
of these.
I don't actually like to lookfor these objects with these
types of binoculars right away.

(07:40):
Here's where having thedifferent ones is kind of like
when you have differenteyepieces.
I actually don't like juststarting with either of these
two pairs of binoculars I thinka combination of the 7x50s to
you know, initially scan throughthe sky and you'll have that

(08:01):
wider field of view.
And if you find something thatyou notice you're interested in,
that's when you can jump uphere to the 15x70 or the 20x80
to look more closely.
But the scanning of the skyitself, these 7x50s are my
favorite.
I laid on my back the othernight I scanned through the sky

(08:23):
and I looked at, you know,patches of stars.
I found some satellites that Iwas able to actually track along
with with the binoculars, whichis awesome.
You're not gonna see detail onthose objects, but the
International Space Station youmight have a chance.
The smaller satellites not somuch.
I am looking at Antares rightnow with the 7x50s and the color

(08:47):
of this star, this orangishcolor, is so, so different from
all of the other stars that arearound it.
The temperature of the star iswhy it's the different colors.
So that's actually indicatingthat Antares is cooler than the
surrounding, more blue coloredstars or white colored stars.

(09:10):
The other one that is out rightnow is actually right up above
me there in that direction, andthat is the Big Dip, asterism,
and it goes the arc to arcturus.
And if I'm looking at that oneand I'm getting that very
different hue, a different colorthat you would have seen,

(09:34):
compared to the other stars inthe sky, very distinct.
I can also pinpoint some doubles.
So some doubles to look atwould be like Mizar and Alcor in
the handle of the Big Dipper.
It's kind of cool you can splitthe Mizar and Alcor in the
handle of the Big Dipper.
It's kind of cool, you cansplit the Mizar and Alcor with
your eyes, but here in thebinoculars it's just so much
better.

(09:54):
It's such a great little doubleand you'll notice that when,
upon zooming in, that it'sactually not just one set of
stars, just one set of stars,it's two sets of stars or four
total, two binary systemssitting right next to one

(10:15):
another.
In fact, I believe one of thoseis a spectroscopic binary,
where one of those stars is notvisibly able to be seen as
different, but throughspectroscopy we can detect that
there is a second star that'sorbiting very, very closely to
the other one.
So that's spectroscopy.
We can detect that there is asecond star that's orbiting very
, very closely to the other one.
So that's spectroscopic binary,not visible even through
telescopes.
I like both of them All.

(10:36):
Right, that's definitely thecase.
In fact I like all three ofthem, it's just that they have
different uses.
So what else could we be usingthese for?
Well, tonight we've got themoon shining very bright, and so
I'm finding it difficult tolook at anything else, even
through the telescope.
It is kind of a problem to havethe moon in the sky like this.

(10:58):
So what I'm planning to do isgoing to bed and then later on
tonight getting up once the moonhas set, and that way I can
observe when it's darker outside, because not of the actual
amount of sunlight, but it's themoonlight that we're contesting
with, so I'm gonna wait a fewhours.
It moves approximately onewidth of your fist every hour.

(11:21):
It's about 13 degrees.
Your fist is approximately 10.
So here we go.
We've got one hour, two hours,three hours, and it's going to
be over there in the woods.
Another half an hour or soit'll be below the horizon and
our skies are going to getsignificantly darker.
Now, if you're dealing withlight, polluted skies, do your

(11:42):
best to get portable, and whatbetter way to do that than using
binoculars?
Right, so I can throw this backinto my car.
In fact, both of these tripodsalso come with cases.
Each of these, they come withtheir own case, so we've got the
one here for the small 7x50s.
The binoculars fit right in andthis makes for a really nice

(12:05):
portable way.
You've got this and your, andthis makes for a really nice
portable way.
You've got this and your tripod.
If you've got one of the biggerones, and the bags are super
durable Keeps everything inplace.
Don't forget, if you're gettingthe 7x50s or the 15x70s, that
you're going to need to get thetripod adapter, whereas the

(12:25):
20x80 comes with the tripodadapter built into it, so you
don't need it for that one.
But that's such a great way toget portable and get out to
those clear dark skies.
Thanks a lot and keep lookingup.

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Binocular Stargazing 101: Essential Tips - with Celestron SkyMaster Pro ED

Episode Transcript

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