It is better to have two eyes than one.
Your eyes are positioned a few inches apart so that they can provide different perspectives. Because the brain processes the images from two eyes to create depth, the majority of people see the world in three dimensions. It is not flat because they combine the streams.
This effect is amplified by binoculars. This is why binoculars are so popular with wildlife watchers. You can feel like you could touch distant animals and birds in 3D.
This unique quality of binoculars works well at distances that don’t exceed the distance between the lenses. It’s difficult to see a distant star with the binoculars. Astronomers tend to use one image. It is much easier and cheaper to operate one telescope than two.
However, telescopes can be intimidating for beginners. Many people who look through an astronomical telescope first time are confused by the enthusiastic chatter of their friend. Why? They see nothing! They aren’t used to seeing with one eye, which can be quite difficult.
The view at high magnification can be completely unrecognizable. There are no landmarks or sense of scale and proportion. A tiny portion of the sky can be seen, sometimes flipped upside-down and backwards.
Binoculars, which are basically two telescopes that have been bolted together, solve all of these problems. It is possible to see the same things you saw with your eyes but in much greater detail. Everything is brighter. Your brain is more open to accepting new and unfamiliar things. Your eyesight is being strengthened, not replaced.
You need to know what you are trying to accomplish before you decide whether or not you should use binoculars or a telescope.
Astronomers have two main goals. First, gather as much light from faint objects like galaxies as possible. Two: Make sharp images so that they can find planets around distant stars.
The first target is the most important. They act like light-buckets. They gather light millions of times greater than your tiny pupil and then focus it so faint things can be observed.
You need a higher magnification view to see small objects, such as Saturn’s rings or Jupiter’s clouds. Magnifications over 10X are too high for handholding. The image becomes blurry and unwieldy.
Because of the small field of view, you will need to be able to accurately navigate and track your target while the Earth rotates. A mount like this costs twice as much as the telescope. Astronomers almost always use a telescope for scientific projects that require only one point of view.
For those who want to see the sky from your own eyes, however, the priority is a wide field of view. Binoculars make a great choice to view the star fields in the Milky Way or the strange glow of baby stars in Orion Nebula.
These telescopes are portable, lightweight and do not require a mount. These are also much cheaper than a good telescope. You should get the largest objective lenses possible (50mm or more), and keep the magnification low (10X to 10X).
Telescopes can not see into space better than binoculars. With their huge lenses and strong support systems, telescopes used by astronomers are stronger than any binoculars. It all comes down to the size. Both tools use the same optical principles for the job.
Astronomers have tried for a long time to use binoculars in order to see into space. It is difficult to combine images from two telescopes. Each telescope must have perfect images. Computers can correct for turbulence approximately 1,000 times per second. Your brain is so skilled at automatically combining information from both eyes that technology hasn’t caught up to it yet.
The Large Binocular Telescope, a new observatory in Arizona, has just been opened. It has two identical 8.2-meter telescopes, which are about the largest mirrors made. They can be mounted on one mount. The Large Binocular Telescope can create sharp images of extremely faint objects, much in the same way as your eyes and brain.
