Celestron Nature DX 8x42 Waterproof Binoculars for Bird Watching & Outdoors

Several people have mentioned binoculars. If you do get binoculars, and might also want to use them for watching the local wildlife that visits your yard, take into account the "close focus distance".

Almost all binoculars can focus on things that are far away, which is usually the case for astronomy (and in those cases when it isn't, you are too busy running from the asteroid that is about to hit you to be making observations...).

But how close they can focus varies a lot. I've seen good recommendations for the Celestron Nature DX [1] series as a good but not too expensive binocular for critter watching.

The 56 mm models can focus down to 3 m, and the smaller models down to 2 m. I have the 8x42 model, and it has been great when I'm at my desk in the living room next to a big window, and see a critter I want to take a closer look at sitting on the rail of my front deck. I can just pick the binoculars up and get a good look right from my desk. With my old binoculars (50+ year old Tower Optical binoculars that my family had when I was a little kid), I had to back up to the opposite side of the room to focus on something on the deck rail.

If you want to wear glasses while using binoculars, make sure they have an adjustment for that. The rear binocular lens is supposed to be a certain distance from your eye. There needs to be a mechanism that allows you to get closer to the lens when wearing glasses, to compensate for the added distance glasses add.

For the Celestron Nature DX, you simply twist the eye cups. They are on some sort of threaded mechanism that can move them in or out as you twist them. Move them all the way out to use without glasses, and move them in when using glasses.

I believe I've seen some where you swap eye cups to switch distances, which seems like it would be inconvenient.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B73JONS/

I agree with the other recommendation to go with binoculars for your first foray into assisted sky viewing.

Another point in favor of binoculars for people living out of the city is that places out of the city often have more wildlife. Binoculars can be great for observing that.

When choosing binoculars there are a couple tradeoffs. Binoculars are listed as M x D, where M is the magnification and D is the diameter of the lenses in mm. For M here are some considerations:

• Bigger M makes things look bigger.

• Bigger M also reduces the field of view.

• The smaller the field of view the steadier you will need to be able to hold the binoculars to keep something in the field of view. A magnification of 15 for example would probably be useless for most people who are not using a tripod and trying to keep a flying bird in view. Actually it would probably even by hard with a tripod. But for looking at something that isn't moving (or whose apparent motion is very slow like a planet) 15 might work by hand and would be a piece of cake with a tripod.

For D some considerations are:

• The bigger the D the more light the lenses gather, letting you see dimmer objects.

• The bigger the D the more the binoculars weigh which makes it harder to keep them steady without a tripod and tires you out faster.

Another thing you might want to consider is the "close focus distance". Binoculars can focus on things from the close focus distance to infinity. For binoculars meant for astronomy the close focal distance can be 50 feet or more. Not a problem when you are looking at the Moon, but might be if you want to take a look at a squirrel frolicking in your yard.

Binoculars meant for wildlife will have a much shorts close focal distance. For example I've got Celestron's Nature DX 8x42 binoculars [1] and their close focus distance is 6.5 feet.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Celestron-71332-Nature-Binocular-Gree...