Quote Originally Posted by BobH View Post
Absolutely no experience star gazing with binoculars but your question got me looking for info. From the little I have read you would be looking for a pair of binoculars with a 5mm exit pupil if you are older with larger exit pupils benefitting the younger crowd. The draw back to exit pupils larger than 5mm is that the objective lenses become very large adding greatly to the weight of the binoculars.

The higher the magnification the larger and heavier the binoculars become even if you go with a 5mm exit pupil. Higher magnification coupled with extra weight make it harder to hold the binoculars steady enough free hand. You will need a sturdy tripod with a counter weighted arm for easy hands free steady viewing of the stars. A Celestron SkyMaster 25x100 binocular weighs 156 oz/4.4 kilo and will not be hand hold able. Binoculars in 8X40 are not too bad to hand hold if braced but by the time you hit 10X50 you are talking serious weight and bulk.

Bob
Thanks for your comments. I have seen higher-power star-gazing binoculars for sale, 25x100 from your example, but this exceeds the power squared to diameter ratio I am talking about. 25x would equal > 625mm in this relationship. More realistically, it would have to be no more than 10x equaling > 100mm. 5x30 and 7x50 do this. I also would be using the binoculars with a tripod as it is far more stable that way. I'm just wondering if such examples do exist.