You mean Jupiter's moons. If the moons are close to the planets edge they may seem like part of a ring system. Although Jupiter has a very faint ring, it was only visible to the Voyager spacecraft, & can't be seen with telescopes on earth. I don't believe that even the Hubble telescope was able to see it. Cassini didn't see it passing by on it's way to Saturn.
Saturn is barely visible with binoculars briefly just after sunset very low in the southwest before it sets below the horizon. I don't know if its moons would be visible in the glare of the sunset sky, but you should barely see its rings through 7x50 or better binoculars & even small scopes. Don't confuse it with orange Antares nearby twinkling to it's left.
There will be many alignents before 2020, just not these 3, this close, that will last almost a week. They were even closer this morning but I missed it because all my windows face north. I believe there will be alignments with Saturn & a couple planets within a year.
7x50 to 10x50 don't really blow things up that much, but brighten up & sharpen up stuff in the sky a lot. You get a veiw through them like you would of the sky 50 years ago far from the glare & wash-out of city lights. Even in the country these days, civilization's electric lights drown out the high contrast view of the sky & it's many stars. Simple hand-held binoculars restore that view a little.
Because they brighten objects in the night sky, they also bring out the colors more. Unlike the sci-fi movies that show all the stars as white dots, most stars are various shades of blue, yellow, orange, or red & very colorful. Very few stars are actually pure white. It's only a brief time in a star's life when it's pure white as it transitions from a young blue star to a yellow middle aged star.
Binoculars also are very portable, can be easily carried around, or left in the car or backpack. But anything above 10x50 needs a tripod because it's too hard to hold the view steady at higher magnifications. Even at 10x50 I find it difficult to get a steady veiw unless I prop myself or the binoculars against something. My favorite are 7x50 because they're easier to hold steady & offer a very wide bright field of view. You can see a wide angle of stuff through them rather than looking like you're viewing the sky through a tiny narrow tube.
They're also handy for daytime use, to see distance scenes, nature, birds, other wildlife, or people.
One can get a good set on sale for under $45. Avoid ones with gold or ruby tinted lenses. They're a sales gimmick & will actually make the view worse. They're usually tinted to hide the poor inferior optics. Also zoom binoculars don't work well for astronomy because they distort & dim the image too much.
I have a set of huge 20x80 binoculars I rebuilt after the fire, but they'll never be as good as before the fire anymore. Something that size is absolutely impossible to use without a tripod, but a simple camera tripod will work as long as it will handle the weight. They offer a much wider field of view than a telescope but not as wide as 7x50 ones. Sometimes it's not about magnification or science, but just getting dazzling wide views of the sky.
I was fortunate my 20 year old 7x50 Pentax binaculars were in my downtown office during the fire so weren't damaged. It's showing its age after years of hiking, biking, & camping, but still offers an incredibly sharp clear bright image of the sky. I tested almost a dozen of them before I decided on buying them.
They're my most used binoculars.
Topic: Pluto, space, & beyond. (Read 48208 times)
