Start With Binoculars?
Point an ordinary pair of 10×50 binoculars at the night sky, and you can see craters on the Moon and the ragged line where sunlight meets shadow.
Jupiter shows up as a small disc with up to four of its moons strung out beside it as points of light.
The Pleiades, the Orion Nebula and the Beehive Cluster are all within reach, and on a night the soft band of the Milky Way breaks apart into more stars than you could ever count.
There’s one thing they won’t show you, and it’s better to hear it now than find out later. Saturn’s rings are out of reach, because at 10x, Saturn is just a bright dot.
That’s the answer to what you can see with 10×50 binoculars.
The rest of this page is about how to get the most out of that list, very often with a pair that’s already sitting in a cupboard or your car’s glovebox.
Jupiter shows up as a small disc with up to four of its moons strung out beside it as points of light.
The Pleiades, the Orion Nebula and the Beehive Cluster are all within reach, and on a night the soft band of the Milky Way breaks apart into more stars than you could ever count.
There’s one thing they won’t show you, and it’s better to hear it now than find out later. Saturn’s rings are out of reach, because at 10x, Saturn is just a bright dot.
That’s the answer to what you can see with 10×50 binoculars.
The rest of this page is about how to get the most out of that list, very often with a pair that’s already sitting in a cupboard or your car’s glovebox.
How binoculars teach you the sky
A long-time amateur astronomer with sixteen years at the eyepiece behind him tells a story every beginner should hear.
One spring night, he spent about twenty minutes at his telescope trying to find the Beehive Cluster.
He couldn’t find it, even though it’s one of the brightest objects in the spring sky.
So he stepped back from the telescope and picked up a pair of binoculars. The cluster stood out right away.
Once he knew exactly where it sat, he went back to the telescope and found it again in about thirty seconds. Twenty minutes of frustration turned into thirty seconds, and the only thing that changed was knowing where to look.
One spring night, he spent about twenty minutes at his telescope trying to find the Beehive Cluster.
He couldn’t find it, even though it’s one of the brightest objects in the spring sky.
So he stepped back from the telescope and picked up a pair of binoculars. The cluster stood out right away.
Once he knew exactly where it sat, he went back to the telescope and found it again in about thirty seconds. Twenty minutes of frustration turned into thirty seconds, and the only thing that changed was knowing where to look.
That’s the real gift of binoculars.
A telescope shows you a tiny piece of sky, so if you don’t already know where something is, you can sweep around for ages and see nothing but black.
Binoculars show you a much wider patch, which means you can see how a cluster sits next to the stars around it.
That’s how you learn the sky, one bright landmark at a time.
That learning matters for the money you spend later.
Plenty of first telescopes end up in a closet, unused, and the astronomy community even has a name for them.
We wrote about that in The Hobby Killer, and the common advice there is that a 6-inch Dobsonian (a simple, sturdy telescope that sits on a box-shaped base on the ground) is about the smallest telescope worth buying.
Starting with binoculars is how you avoid that closet.
By the time you buy a telescope, you already know where things are, so you spend your nights looking at them and not hunting for them.
What binoculars won’t show you
It’s only fair to give you the whole picture, because you deserve to go outside knowing what to expect.
Saturn’s rings are the big one.
Even 25x magnification is only just enough for the rings to show at all, so a normal pair of binoculars gives you a little dot.
It’s still a pleasure to know you’re looking at Saturn, but the rings will have to wait for a telescope.
Jupiter has the same limit.
You’ll see its moons lined up beside it, and that’s a real thrill, but you won’t see the colored stripes across the planet itself.
Nebulas, which are big clouds of gas and dust in space, won’t show the bright reds and blues you’ve seen in photos.
Those photos are long camera exposures, and your eye can’t gather light that way, so in binoculars a nebula looks like a soft gray glow.
The Andromeda Galaxy is the one that disappoints people most. From a city or a bright suburb, you’ll see absolutely nothing through 10x50s.
The Moon can spoil things too. A full Moon washes out the sky the same way heavy light pollution does, so faint targets fade away on those nights.
If you live under bright skies, plan your faint targets for nights when the Moon is small or below the horizon.
None of that should put you off.
It just means you’ll pick the right target for the right night, which is a habit good observers keep for life.
Saturn’s rings are the big one.
Even 25x magnification is only just enough for the rings to show at all, so a normal pair of binoculars gives you a little dot.
It’s still a pleasure to know you’re looking at Saturn, but the rings will have to wait for a telescope.
Jupiter has the same limit.
You’ll see its moons lined up beside it, and that’s a real thrill, but you won’t see the colored stripes across the planet itself.
Nebulas, which are big clouds of gas and dust in space, won’t show the bright reds and blues you’ve seen in photos.
Those photos are long camera exposures, and your eye can’t gather light that way, so in binoculars a nebula looks like a soft gray glow.
The Andromeda Galaxy is the one that disappoints people most. From a city or a bright suburb, you’ll see absolutely nothing through 10x50s.
The Moon can spoil things too. A full Moon washes out the sky the same way heavy light pollution does, so faint targets fade away on those nights.
If you live under bright skies, plan your faint targets for nights when the Moon is small or below the horizon.
None of that should put you off.
It just means you’ll pick the right target for the right night, which is a habit good observers keep for life.
Celestron 10 x 50 UpClose G2 Binoculars
Should you get 10×50 or 7×50?
The two numbers on a pair of binoculars tell you almost everything.
The first number is the magnification, so 10x makes things look ten times closer.
The second is how wide each front lens is in millimeters, so 50 means 50 mm lenses.
If you divide the second number by the first, you get something called the exit pupil. That’s the width of the little circle of light that comes out of the eyepiece and goes into your eye.
For 10x50s, 50 divided by 10 gives a 5 mm exit pupil.
That makes the sky background look a little darker, which helps faint stars and clusters stand out when you’re fighting streetlights and porch lights.
For 7x50s, 50 divided by 7 gives about a 7 mm exit pupil.
That brightens the sky a bit, but the lower magnification makes them easier to hold steady.
There’s a twist that matters if you’re over forty.
As we get older, the pupil often opens to only about 5 mm in the dark.
If your eye can’t open to 7 mm, part of the light from a 7×50 never gets in, so you’re carrying extra brightness that you can’t use.
For most people in a suburb or a town, my advice is to choose the 10×50.
The 7×50 still makes good sense if your hands are a bit shaky or you live under very dark country skies.
Be careful with anything much above 10x. It gets very hard to hold steady without a tripod, and every tiny shake gets magnified along with the stars.
Binoculars sold with huge magnification numbers are the same trap as a telescope boasting 600x on the box, which is a number that mostly helps the box sell.
The first number is the magnification, so 10x makes things look ten times closer.
The second is how wide each front lens is in millimeters, so 50 means 50 mm lenses.
If you divide the second number by the first, you get something called the exit pupil. That’s the width of the little circle of light that comes out of the eyepiece and goes into your eye.
For 10x50s, 50 divided by 10 gives a 5 mm exit pupil.
That makes the sky background look a little darker, which helps faint stars and clusters stand out when you’re fighting streetlights and porch lights.
For 7x50s, 50 divided by 7 gives about a 7 mm exit pupil.
That brightens the sky a bit, but the lower magnification makes them easier to hold steady.
There’s a twist that matters if you’re over forty.
As we get older, the pupil often opens to only about 5 mm in the dark.
If your eye can’t open to 7 mm, part of the light from a 7×50 never gets in, so you’re carrying extra brightness that you can’t use.
For most people in a suburb or a town, my advice is to choose the 10×50.
The 7×50 still makes good sense if your hands are a bit shaky or you live under very dark country skies.
Be careful with anything much above 10x. It gets very hard to hold steady without a tripod, and every tiny shake gets magnified along with the stars.
Binoculars sold with huge magnification numbers are the same trap as a telescope boasting 600x on the box, which is a number that mostly helps the box sell.
How to see more with the pair you already own
The good news is that the biggest gains here cost nothing at all. A few habits will show you more than any new equipment.
Hold them still
Your hands shake more than you think, and at 10x that shake, stars turn into dancing smudges.
So lean against a tree, sit in a chair, or rest your elbows on the roof of your car.
The comfiest way of all is a reclining garden chair. You lie back, your arms rest on your chest, and the view settles right down.
Look for bright things first.
Look up with your bare eyes, find something bright, and then raise the binoculars to it.
That works much better than sweeping the sky looking for an object you don’t recognize yet.
Every bright thing you check is something new you’ve learned, and that’s how the map in your head starts to grow.
Hold them still
Your hands shake more than you think, and at 10x that shake, stars turn into dancing smudges.
So lean against a tree, sit in a chair, or rest your elbows on the roof of your car.
The comfiest way of all is a reclining garden chair. You lie back, your arms rest on your chest, and the view settles right down.
Look for bright things first.
Look up with your bare eyes, find something bright, and then raise the binoculars to it.
That works much better than sweeping the sky looking for an object you don’t recognize yet.
Every bright thing you check is something new you’ve learned, and that’s how the map in your head starts to grow.
Give your eyes time
Your eyes need a chemical called rhodopsin to see in dim light, and your body doesn’t make it in daylight.
After about twenty minutes in very low light, your eyes start making it, and they get the full benefit somewhere between twenty and forty minutes.
A few seconds of bright light wipes it out, and then the clock starts again from zero.
So that glance at your phone screen costs you more than it seems.
Red light doesn’t wipe it out, which is why astronomers use red flashlights.
Even then, keep the red light dim, because a bright red beam still dulls your night vision.
Look a little to the side
This single trick shows a beginner more than any new gear.
It’s called averted vision, and it comes from how your eye is built.
The middle of your eye is packed with cells that handle color and fine detail, and they need plenty of light. The cells that pick up faint, gray light sit around the edges.
So when something is faint, look slightly to one side, and it often looks like someone turned up a dimmer switch.
After about twenty minutes in very low light, your eyes start making it, and they get the full benefit somewhere between twenty and forty minutes.
A few seconds of bright light wipes it out, and then the clock starts again from zero.
So that glance at your phone screen costs you more than it seems.
Red light doesn’t wipe it out, which is why astronomers use red flashlights.
Even then, keep the red light dim, because a bright red beam still dulls your night vision.
Look a little to the side
This single trick shows a beginner more than any new gear.
It’s called averted vision, and it comes from how your eye is built.
The middle of your eye is packed with cells that handle color and fine detail, and they need plenty of light. The cells that pick up faint, gray light sit around the edges.
So when something is faint, look slightly to one side, and it often looks like someone turned up a dimmer switch.
Set them up properly
Most people never learn this part, so they spend years looking through binoculars with one eye a little blurry.
It only takes a minute, and you’ll need to find the diopter first.
That’s a small adjustable ring, usually on one of the two eyepieces, which lets you fix any difference between your left and right eye.
Fold the two halves of the binoculars at the hinge until both eyes line up, and you see one circle of view. If you wear glasses, twist or fold the rubber eyecups down so your eyes can get close enough.
Point at a bright star and roughly focus with the center wheel.
Close the eye on the diopter side. With your other eye, turn the center wheel until the star is a sharp point.
Now open the diopter eye. Without touching the center wheel, turn the diopter ring until that same star is sharp for this eye too.
That’s it, and you only need to do it once, as long as nobody else bumps the diopter ring.
It only takes a minute, and you’ll need to find the diopter first.
That’s a small adjustable ring, usually on one of the two eyepieces, which lets you fix any difference between your left and right eye.
Fold the two halves of the binoculars at the hinge until both eyes line up, and you see one circle of view. If you wear glasses, twist or fold the rubber eyecups down so your eyes can get close enough.
Point at a bright star and roughly focus with the center wheel.
Close the eye on the diopter side. With your other eye, turn the center wheel until the star is a sharp point.
Now open the diopter eye. Without touching the center wheel, turn the diopter ring until that same star is sharp for this eye too.
That’s it, and you only need to do it once, as long as nobody else bumps the diopter ring.
What to look at, in the order to try it
The Moon
Start here, because you can’t miss it.
The best nights are around half Moon, when the line between the sunlit side and the dark side cuts across the face.
Along that line, the low sunlight throws long shadows, so craters and mountains stand out clearly.
A full Moon is actually the worst night for this, because the Sun is shining straight on and there are no shadows at all.
The best nights are around half Moon, when the line between the sunlit side and the dark side cuts across the face.
Along that line, the low sunlight throws long shadows, so craters and mountains stand out clearly.
A full Moon is actually the worst night for this, because the Sun is shining straight on and there are no shadows at all.
Jupiter and its moons
Jupiter and its moons
Jupiter looks like a very bright star that doesn’t fit with any star pattern you know.
In binoculars, it becomes a small disc, with up to four tiny points of light strung out in a line beside it.
Those are its four big moons.
You won’t see detail on the planet, but it’s unmistakably Jupiter, and if you look the next night again, the moons will have moved.
In binoculars, it becomes a small disc, with up to four tiny points of light strung out in a line beside it.
Those are its four big moons.
You won’t see detail on the planet, but it’s unmistakably Jupiter, and if you look the next night again, the moons will have moved.
The Pleiades
This little group of stars is often called the Seven Sisters, and you can spot it with the naked eye as a small, misty cluster.
In binoculars, it opens up into a bright, tight group of blue-white stars that fills the view.
It’s one of the easiest and prettiest things in the sky, even from town.
In binoculars, it opens up into a bright, tight group of blue-white stars that fills the view.
It’s one of the easiest and prettiest things in the sky, even from town.
The Orion Nebula
Find the three stars of Orion’s belt, then look just below them for the short line of stars that makes his sword.
The fuzzy middle star of the sword is the Orion Nebula. Plenty of beginners search around the belt for it, so start with the sword.
From a dark site, 50 mm binoculars show a glow about one degree wide, which is roughly twice the width of the full Moon.
One observer describes its shape as a nodding flower. It’s also one of the very few objects where some people notice a faint greenish tint.
The fuzzy middle star of the sword is the Orion Nebula. Plenty of beginners search around the belt for it, so start with the sword.
From a dark site, 50 mm binoculars show a glow about one degree wide, which is roughly twice the width of the full Moon.
One observer describes its shape as a nodding flower. It’s also one of the very few objects where some people notice a faint greenish tint.
Beehive Cluster
The Beehive Cluster
This is the spring cluster from the story above, and it shows how much easier binoculars make things.
It’s a loose scatter of stars that looks like a faint smudge to the bare eye from a dark place, and binoculars turn that smudge into a swarm of separate stars.
It’s a loose scatter of stars that looks like a faint smudge to the bare eye from a dark place, and binoculars turn that smudge into a swarm of separate stars.
Andromeda, from a dark site
Save this one for a trip somewhere truly dark, because you won’t see it at all from a city.
Under a dark sky, look for a soft, pale glow with no color and no spiral arms.
It doesn’t look like much, but that faint glow is a whole other galaxy, and it’s strange to stand in a field and think about it.
Under a dark sky, look for a soft, pale glow with no color and no spiral arms.
It doesn’t look like much, but that faint glow is a whole other galaxy, and it’s strange to stand in a field and think about it.
Venus in twilight
Venus goes through phases like the Moon, and decent binoculars, typically 10×50 or better, can show it as a half-circle or a crescent.
Observers report the thin crescent showing up even in smaller pairs.
Look in bright twilight, while the sky is still blue.
Against a fully dark sky, Venus is so dazzling that the shape gets lost in the glare.
You may have heard that planets don’t twinkle.
That’s mostly true, but when Venus sits low, the shaky air near the horizon can make it flicker through a whole range of colors.
It has been reported as a UFO more than once, so don’t be alarmed if it puts on a show.
Observers report the thin crescent showing up even in smaller pairs.
Look in bright twilight, while the sky is still blue.
Against a fully dark sky, Venus is so dazzling that the shape gets lost in the glare.
You may have heard that planets don’t twinkle.
That’s mostly true, but when Venus sits low, the shaky air near the horizon can make it flicker through a whole range of colors.
It has been reported as a UFO more than once, so don’t be alarmed if it puts on a show.
The Milky Way
On a dark summer or autumn night, away from town lights, sweep slowly along the hazy band of the Milky Way.
Through binoculars, it breaks into star clouds, thick clumps of stars packed so close they look like glitter.
This is the view that turns a curious person into an astronomer, and you don’t need anything more than what’s in your hands.
Through binoculars, it breaks into star clouds, thick clumps of stars packed so close they look like glitter.
This is the view that turns a curious person into an astronomer, and you don’t need anything more than what’s in your hands.
You may not need to buy anything.
Here’s the best news on the page.
The amateur astronomer from the Beehive story says that only magnification really matters for a starter pair, and somewhere between about 10x and 20x is fine.
In his words, whatever binoculars you already have sitting around the house are almost certainly good enough to start.
So check the cupboard, the closet and the glovebox. If there’s nothing there, ask a neighbor or a relative to lend you a pair, or look in a thrift store, where you can often find one for about fifteen dollars.
The amateur astronomer from the Beehive story says that only magnification really matters for a starter pair, and somewhere between about 10x and 20x is fine.
In his words, whatever binoculars you already have sitting around the house are almost certainly good enough to start.
So check the cupboard, the closet and the glovebox. If there’s nothing there, ask a neighbor or a relative to lend you a pair, or look in a thrift store, where you can often find one for about fifteen dollars.
If you do decide to buy
Look for 10x magnification and 50 mm lenses, which gives you that 5 mm exit pupil we talked about.
Before you pay, hold them up to your eyes for a while.
If you can’t comfortably hold them for ten minutes, they’re too heavy for you.
A small pair you can hold steady beats a large pair you can’t.
Try a pair in a store before you buy if you can, and make sure there’s a return policy, because the right pair is the one that feels good in your hands at eleven at night.
Then use them.
Learn where the Beehive is, watch Jupiter’s moons shift, and catch Venus as a crescent in the evening twilight.
At some point you’ll find something faint and lovely, and you’ll catch yourself wishing you could get closer.
That same observer says it best: the telescope comes when you feel it, when you’ve found something and thought, “I need to get closer.”
That hunger is your signal, and it means far more than any number on a spec sheet.
When that night comes, you’ll already know your way around the sky, and our guide to choosing your first telescope will help you pick one you’ll use for years.
Your First Night Out
You don’t even need binoculars to start tonight.
Our free guide, Your First Night Out, shows you how to find the Moon and the bright planets with nothing but your own eyes. It’s the perfect first step before you pick up a pair and look closer.
Explore beginner telescopes,binoculars and best stargazing apps for beginners here:
