Can I see this?

[Tarcin the Stargazer]

My friend has a 10x50 binoculars with 10 x magnification and he claimed to have seen Saturn. Is this possible? I personally doubt it...

[WWPierre]

Tarcin, you can definitely see Saturn, and probably the rings. The ring shadow, the moons, and the Cassini Division? probably not.

[mike_crow]

What Pierre said. You can see more than you'd think with binos. Many of the Messier objects are viewable too, and they are not as bright as Saturn.

[ottUp]

Originally Posted by Tarcin the Stargazer

My friend has a 10x50 binoculars with 10 x magnification and he claimed to have seen Saturn. Is this possible? I personally doubt it...

You can easily see Saturn with your naked eye - not even binoculars required. So certainly he "saw" it. If he meant that he saw the rings, that would be challenging at only 10x magnification, especially right now when the rings aren't inclined much. However, with 10x you could probably see that "it isn't round" - when Galileo first observed Saturn he didn't see rings, but thought he could see some kind of "small projections" sticking out.

Jupiter is easy to see with binoculars, by the way, including some of the cloud detail and the 4 largest moons.

- Richard

[solrey]

Ditto all of the above. Last night, with only about an hour break in clouds, I went out with my 10x50 binoculars and saw the Beehive Cluster and Mars in the same field of view, as well as the Orion Nebula, (including 2 of the 4 stars in the Trapezium), the Pleiades and Hyades clusters, the Double Cluster, Andromeda galaxy, Triangulum Galaxy, double star Alcor/Mizar, (in the handle of the Big Dipper), Bodes Galaxy (barely) and a handful of other star clusters and double stars. And the atmosphere was a bit murky at that.

One can find a lot of cool stuff with 10x50's, including all 4 of Jupiter's Galilean moons and surprising detail on our own moon. Decent ones are pretty much mini telescopes in their own right.
With so much cloud cover in Oregon during the winter, for at least two months I've spent quite a few hours overall, here and there, with the binocs 'cause they're convenient like that, but we've spent zero time on either of our two scopes.

Here's a link to a list of [Registered users can see links. ], total of 76 ranked from easy to challenging, from the [Registered users can see links. ]

Laying out in a comfy lawn chair and relaxing while bracing your arms, and head/neck, helps to steady the view with 10x binocs.

peace,
Tim

[Tarcin the Stargazer]

Somethings wrong with my 10x50 binoculars then. :/

[solrey]

Somethings wrong with my 10x50 binoculars then. :/

I see you list Houston as your location. Light pollution could be a factor.
Most of the deep space objects are going to be pretty dim in 10x50's anyways, galaxies and nebula are just faint fuzzy patches.

What aspect of viewing seems to be wrong with them?

[jrkirkham]

"Seeing" is a relative term. When looking for Messier objects, it is one thing to determine an object's location, another thing to see enough of a distortion to identify that one has located the object, and still another thing to get much of a view. When tracking down Messier objects, it is enough to identify that the object is there. The Astronomical league lists objects in terms of 1,2, and 3 difficulty. I have been tracking these since late fall and have logged 32 Messier objects with my 10X50 binos. I have not looked for the spring or summer lists yet. My goal is to find 50 of them. That is an easy number to hit. Anything labeled "1" is easy to find. I have found a number of the "2" list, but not all that I have looked for. I doubt that I will find any of the "3" list.

As for Saturn, I've never been able to see the rings.

[GriffinBF]

Originally Posted by ottUp

... However, with 10x you could probably see that "it isn't round" - when Galileo first observed Saturn he didn't see rings, but thought he could see some kind of "small projections" sticking out...

- Richard

Second this. That is also the way I would describe Saturn's appearance with 10x50's. It's almost disk shaped with a couple of "lumps" on either side.
edit: .. thinking further, what I said better descibes what I have seen with my 20x60's if I recall correctly. Also, that is tripod mounted.
You've provided me with my next little experiment Tarcin.

[Tarcin the Stargazer]

I pointed my binos at Jupiter and it just looked like how it looks with my naked eye no moon nothing. Pleides, orions nebula, and the moon are all I have seen with my binoculars.

Sorry for being so ignorant!