Celestron SkyMaster 15x70 Porro Binoculars

It must be noted that these are specialist binoculars, which have been designed for astronomical and long range terrestrial use. Using them with a tripod is a must or it is pointless owning them.

Firstly, the optical quality: obviously because of the high power and price paid you can’t expect pin-sharp images and as with most binoculars at this price point I did experience some chromatic aberration (coloured edges around bright images) and a little distortion at the edges of the field of view. However, this in no way detracts from the pleasure of using them. Full correction of this would take us into professional prices i.e. £1,000s. The focus is nice and smooth with the mechanical design allowing for plenty of thumb wheel movement throughout the focus. I believe a ridged stabilising bridge across the ends of the objective barrels would benefit these optics. The binoculars come with a soft carrying case but I would recommend purchasing something more robust for transportation i.e. aluminium carrying case with foam inserts as there is a greater risk for collimation with long focal length binoculars with long barrels. This can also be used for safe storage. Personally, I wouldn’t carry them about in the softcase.

Now onto the performance: although I found them to be lighter than expected for their size, they are still big and bulky. Trying to use them hand-held is going to be a waste of their potential (and also runs the risk of knocks leading to de-collimate them)‚Äã‚Äã. The binoculars do come with a tripod adapter, however, I found that the binoculars were too heavy to use with my standard camera tripod. The centre of gravity is beyond the tripod pivot point and towards the objectives they will crash downwards at the slightest loosing of the tripod pan head. So I would recommend investing in a heavy-duty telescope style tripod and NOT one for DSLRs.

The views of the Milky Way with these binoculars are breathtaking. In this they exceed the views from my large expensive telescope which cannot be used with low magnifications. Such a telescope simply can’t compete with the field of view of these binoculars or the feeling of being immersed out there with the stars. Overall I am very pleased with my purchase.