I set aside Friday night or, should I say early AM Saturday, for astronomy, at least when the sky is clear. I go to bed at the usual time on Friday night to recharge after a day of work on Friday, then get up in the middle of the night to check the sky. If clear, I grab my
astronomy binocular, put on some tea or cocoa and step outside to do some binocular astronomy. Last Saturday morning at 2:00 AM the sky was perfect for astronomy in general and product testing, in particular. I wanted to see how some budget
astronomy binoculars would handle some of the brighter open star clusters. My control binocular was the superb
Nikon 10x70 Astroluxe. No, the
Nikon Action Extreme 10x50 and the
Celestron OutLand LX 10x50 did not show open clusters M34, M35, M41 in as much detail or brightness as the Nikon, but these open clusters were plainly visible. Not bad, considering they are about a tenth the price of the Nikon. A Nikon Action Extreme 10x50 and the Celestron OutLand LX 10x50 are certainly great choices for someone on a budget wanting to get started in a
cheap astronomy binocular.