Astronomy in Binoculars! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Yes

Telescopes, after all, are instruments that gather light and magnify it. Do your binoculars do that? You betcha! They may not have the magnification or light-gathering ability of a top-of-the-line amateur telescope, but they do have many advantages:
-- They're inexpensive. Just getting started in amateur astronomy? Buy a pair of reasonably good quality binoculars, learn your way around the sky, and if you like it, then invest in a good-quality telescope. If you find you don't like astronomy, you can always find another use for the binoculars.
-- They're easy to point where you want to look. Telescopes take a lot of practice. This goes without saying!
-- They're portable. I am rather petite, and so carrying a telescope on a tripod is a major hassle. Binoculars you can just pick up and use.
-- You can use both eyes. Believe it or not, you have better visual acuity using both eyes than just one, like you would with a telescope.
-- They have a wide field of view. Large star clusters just won't fit in the field of view of a telescope.
--Plus, you may already have binoculars. You could get started in astronomy-- tonight!

Answer: Magnification and aperture in millimeters

The first number refers to the power of magnification. Common values are 6x, 7x, and 10x. Quality telescopes, by contrast, start with magnification of about 30x. The second value is the aperture in millimeters. Common values are 30, 35, and 50. For astronomical purposes, 7x is usually the minimum useful magnification, and 35 mm is the minimum useful aperture. If you're thinking about buying a pair of binoculars to use in astronomy, consider that having a large aperture is usually more useful than having a high magnification-- after all, even if you have a high-power telescope, you won't be able to see anything if it doesn't let in enough light. Just for reference, I have a pair of 7x50 binoculars, and I've been able to see most everything I describe in this quiz reasonably well in my suburban back yard.

Answer: All of these

The level of detail you can see on the moon in binoculars is quite amazing. I can always see the central peaks of the craters, the rays of ejecta from the fresh craters, and the relative weathering on the crater rims quite clearly. Get a map of the moon and see how many lunar features you can identify! One thing to be aware of is that the moon is quite bright, and you may want to do something to cover part of the binocular lenses if the image is uncomfortably bright.

Answer: All of these

I hate to say it, but planets really are cooler in telescopes. Still, you have to consider that whatever binoculars you have, they are certainly better than whatever Galileo was using in the early days of astronomy. I have read that you can observe the phases of Venus in binoculars. I have seen Jupiter's Galilean satellites, Io, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede, in binoculars. If you want an interesting project to carry out over the course of a night or a few nights, you can try to determine the orbital period of these moons. Saturn looks like a dot with "ears," maybe, but you won't be able to see the rings. You can find Uranus and Neptune with binoculars, and that's something you can't see with the naked eye.

Answer: Pleiades

Even though most pictures show clouds of blue gas surrounding the stars in the Pleiades, don't expect to see this with your binoculars! The Beehive Cluster and M7 are also beauties, and contain a lot of dimmer stars as opposed to a few bright stars. Both are relatively easy to find.

The Beehive Cluster (aka M44) is in Cancer, on a line right between Regulus, the brightest star in Leo, and Pollux, one of the two bright stars in Gemini. M7 in Scorpius is just to the left of the scorpion's "stinger." The Double Cluster is two open star clusters that appear close to each other in space. You'll need a star chart to find it.

Answer: All of these

Hercules has M13, Sagittarius has M22, and Centaurus has Omega Centauri, all of which should be visible as small fuzzy puffballs in binoculars. Yeah, sure, it could be more impressive, but you like the challenge of finding them, right?

Answer: Blue and yellow

Alberio is the beak of Cygnus the swan. If you have a star chart, it's easy enough to spot, and with a good pair of binoculars you should be able to resolve the two stars, the brighter yellow and the fainter blue.

Answer: Orion Nebula (M42)

The Orion Nebula is the middle star in Orion's "sword", which is located below his "belt". The top star is also the location of a nice star cluster, NGC 1981, which also looks good in binoculars. The belt stars of Orion also mark the spot for the very large and diffuse open cluster Collinder 70, which, you guessed it, you can also see in binoculars.

Answer: Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

The Andromeda Galaxy is also visible to the naked eye as a smudge in very rural areas. Use a star chart to find it. The other galaxies can be found in binoculars... supposedly. I've never been able to do it.

Answer: Really loud stereo system

As for the loud stereo system, I know some people find that listening to music enhances their experience, and it's great to share your love of astronomy with the neighbors, but not like that. Up-to-date star charts can be found in current issues of astronomy magazines like Astronomy and Sky & Telescope, or you can use something like the Edmund Mag 5 star chart.

A flashlight that puts out mostly red light helps preserve your night vision. As for something to sit on, remember that it's dark outside, and sitting on something squishy isn't pleasant. Trust me.