Do We really need to buy expensive Binoculars for Astronomy?

I have two pairs of binoculars that I use for looking at the sky.  The first are 15x70 binoculars from Celestron and the second are 16x70mm binoculars from Astro-Physics.  My understanding is that the binoculars that Astro-Physics sold were sourced maybe from a Russian company but I’m not sure.  I don’t think that AP offers them anymore. They are very stout with water proof rubber cladding and an Astro-Physics label.  There are vast differences between these two sets of binoculars, which is why my experience is relevant to the OPs question.  The Celestron set has “nice” image correction with noticeable distortion and chromatic error around the edge of the field.  The eye relief is good on both sets but a bit tight for wearing glasses.  My Celestron’s are probably around 15 years old and some of the rubber cladding is chemically coming apart—turning into a weird sticky goo.  The Astro-Physics set does not have center focusing, which is a bit of a pain but the image quality is absolutely superb.  I’ve directly compared my AP binoculars to the highest quality Zeiss and Leica binoculars and differences in image quality are hard to spot.  Distortion is very low and the color correction is superb.  The view through the Astro-Physics binoculars is immersive.  The field is very wide and the image is tack sharp.

Under the sky, the differences are very noticeable.  At first glance, the view through the Celestron’s looks “ok” and seems fine until you switch to the higher quality view through the Astro-Physics optics.   Star images snap into absolutely pin-points across the entire field.   Image contrast is superb, subtle strays disappear, and the star colors are deeply saturated.  The width of the field of view is stunning and it’s like looking through a port hole into space.  I put the Celestron binoculars back on the shelf as soon as I got the Astro-Physics binoculars.  The only real disadvantage of the AP binoculars is the weight.  They are noticeably heavier than the Celestron’s and it’s hard to manually sweep the sky for very long before getting tired.  It helps to work out a bit before long night-time sessions!

The bottom line here is that if you want to look at the sky through binoculars, there can be a very big difference in what you see depending on the quality of the binoculars that you use.  Bigger binoculars give an even more impressive view but remember that weight makes a difference in how long you can hold them pointed up.  Big or small, my advice is to get the best possible optics that you can afford.  Make sure that the eye relief is acceptable and that the field of view is wide.  If you get a good pair of binoculars, they should last for a life time of sweeping the sky and you won’t regret it.

John