Celestron SkyMaster 71017 25×100 Binoculars – Waterproof

I took pictures of Jupiter and the Galilean moons through these big binoculars. These are HEAVY BINOCULARS, so make sure to get the proper tripod with a parallelogram mount. You will regret it if you do not. I mated these binoculars to the Orion Monster Parallelogram Binocular Mount & Tripod. I attached my Samsung Note 5 to the binoculars with a Snapzoom Universal Digiscoping Adapter. I used this setup to take the attached pictures of the Moon and Jupiter on May 11, 2016.

We picked these up as a Prime Day special. I have a number of high end binoculars (Nikon, Zeiss, etc) and knew I shouldn’t expect alot at this price point. I only bought them because my daughter expressed an interest in astronomy, and I thought these would help. Build quality is about what you’d expect at this price point, basic construction, plastic body. Your money is being spent on the lenses up front, to get that last bit of light in. I just opened the box today, mounted to a tripod and pointed at Jupiter and ……. disappointed. As many mentioned in the comments below, these are out of collimation. Rather than see one Jupiter, I got to see two. Two of every thing I pointed it at. I know I could send it to Celestron for repairs, but I shouldn’t have to for a brand new pair of binoculars. Sadly, I am returning these today and just going in a different direction.

Celestron’s customer service is terrible and I’ve been very disappointed. I purchased the binoculars, deluxe carrying case, and tripod approximately 1 year ago as a gift for my parents. They recently started using the binoculars and believe there is a calibration issue. Celestron technical service said their support is provided within the first 30 days of purchase. So, their limited lifetime warranty claim is very deceiving and facetious. The representative I dealt with offered no alternative and did not even offer to look at the binoculars. Overall, a very expensive purchase that I deeply regret. I suggest other potential buyers look elsewhere (Nikon, Olympus)- purchase from a company that’s more willing to stand behind their product and support their customers.

First thing first, delivery service, packaging was great.This is my first binoculars ever. So I can’t say if this piece is completely out of collimation (will give updates once I check).Pros:1. Well built.2. Fully multicoated optics.3. Value for money.4. Best for beginners in Astronomy.Cons:1. Quality of bag provided is not good. (substitute would be a DSLR camera backpack and it will do the job).2. Collimation could be a problem. (Almost all heavy binos have this error). You can fix it yourself or could ask for replacement.In detail:-1). You cannot get this quality at this price. Compare with ORION 20X80 — which is around ₹ 25k.2). If you cannot decide about getting 20X80 or other smaller binos then I would say 20X80 would be better. It has larger objective of 80mm which increases your limiting magnitude to approx +7(with naked eyes your limiting magnitude is around +1). That’s a huge difference. You will be able to see most of the messier objects and other DSOs apart from Moon, planets and Orion nebula.3). It is literally a pair of two small telescopes😉. A telescope equivalent to these binoculars will be above ₹ 60k (trust me), So this is a great deal.Some important points:1). You can adjust inter pupillery distance. (As any other binoculars has)2). You can adjust dioptre setting (for individual focus adjustment for eyes) by rotating right eye piece.(please Google for more information)3). Centre focus wheel is given.( For focusing at different distances)(All above three adjustment could be stiff in the starting)Suggestion for Tripod:1). A fluid head tripod is must (for smooth and precise maneuvering of binoculars).2). Tripod must be heavy (to keep binoculars steady/ 20X magnification is too much).3). Branded tripod is not required.4). I will suggest to get a tripod from a photo store. (If it’s in your budget then Manfrotto fluid head tripod will be the best)An Update:1). Saturn’s ring is visible. It will need a nice focus and patience.2). Object should be at the centre of field of view to avoid chromatic abbression.3). Four of the Jupiter’s moon are visible. You can not make out Great Red spot.4). After watching planets for an hour, I found my binoculars are perfectly collimated.5). Bright objects (-2 magnitude or higher) will give chromatic abbression.6). You will be able to see stars as dim as +8 magnitude in a light polluted sky.7). Andromeda galaxy will cover your entire field of view on a very dark night.8). Many DSOs around Sagittarius constellation are visible from these binoculars.9). Field of view is around 3° and not 3.7° as mentioned.10). Moon looks breathtakingly beautiful. It will appear three dimensional with these giant binoculars. You can make out Apollo missions’ landing sites to a precision of few kilometers.11). Orion Nebula will be visible bright and crisp. Your field of view will be contain just the Orion sword.12). If you are willing to do astrophotography using these binoculars then you will need a smartphone adapter for binoculars (just search for it and you will find it on amazon) and a photo staking software – DeepSkyStacker which will stack together hundreds of shots of a DSO and after few hours of processing, you will get a bright and detailed astrophotograph.13). Neptune and Uranus are visible just like a dot but you can make out their color.Best at this price!!Clear skies!!

Our family are all interested in the stars and planets, we have some old binoculars, I ordered these thinking they would bring the Moon and stars closer and clearer. I tried to focus them for about an hour, and gave up. My son then tried, he’s usually quite good with these type of things, but after some time trying to adjust them, like me, he couldn’t get a clear image, and the blurry image he managed to get of the moon, was not really any larger than our old binoculars. I’m not sure if we were unlucky and they were faulty, they were not packed at all securely, and plastic bag not sealed. We thought these may have already been returned as faulty, and sent out to us. But I wouldn’t recommend these and returned them. Amazon were very good and I received a full refund.

These are just the maddest binoculars in the world. They are HUGE. *Unimaginably* huge.They laughably come with a neck strap. For what? An elephant?I now have a small & medium pair of binox and these monsters too. They are great I ever want to set up somewhere static with a tripod and look at something pretty fixed, distance wise. However there is no central focus wheel and you have to focus each eye independantly which is a bit of a pain as they are very heavy if you are holding them in one hand to do so.They do not focus any nearer than about 40m.Despite the focus being a bit of a pain as mentioned above, they are brilliant binoculars, and I would recommend them if you can set up with a tripod and pre-focus. You can’t beat them for that.

Very heavy for long-term hand use – really needs a monopod for terrestrial use or tripod for astronomy. The mid-line brace holding the tripod adaptor socket should ensure the objective lenses remain in perfect alignment – unlike the smaller (and cheaper) 70 mm diameter ones I have which soon went cross-eyed. Nevertheless, I would advise users to be careful not to suspend the binoculars (whether or not in their pouch) by their strap, as the plastic clips have in the past proved to be liable to break without warning (which is why my 70 mm ones went cross-eyed). At this sort of price & quality of optics, I would have expected a hard, protective case rather than a soft pouch.

Low cost for what they are supposed to do and it shows. Good value if you are willing to fix what you can and put up with the rest. Out of the box they suffer from poor alignment and chromatic aberration. The tripod mount isn’t a good fit either so they wobble with the slightest wind. Can’t do much about the chroma but alignment is relatively easy to fix once you locate the alignment screws. I had to pry the rubber grips slightly to the back and I used a brick wall some distance away as a reference, didn’t take more than 20 minutes to get it right. Next I’ll try using a bronze sheet to address the mount issue. Impossible to use without a tripod.