I bought the TS Optics 15 x 70 LE a few weeks ago at Teleskop-Express for a price of 119€. I think this binoculars are a good start for amateur astronomers. You don’t have the weight of a telescope and don’t have the problems to adjust it. You can take it easily with you and just start to look at the sky. It’s a nice way to learn star hopping. You have a greater field of view than with telescopes, which makes it easier.

I often read that you shouldn’t use a binocular greater than 10×50 without a tripod. But I think, at least in this case, 15×70 is OK to use freehand. Of course you have to practice a little bit to hold it calmly but for the beginning you can also try to lean on something. This binocular has only a weight of 1300 gram so it shouldn’t be a big problem.

This week was the first time that I could use it. It was really nice to just look around and notice all those stars you can’t see with the naked eye. The first “object” I’ve seen were the Pleiades, they are easy to find and look great. After that I looked for the Orion Nebula, it was also quite easy to find and a nice view.

A day after that I took a look at Jupiter at dusk. Of course you can’t expect to see much of a planet with binoculars, but I could notice 2 of Jupiters moons, Ganymede and Callisto.

I’m very happy with the binocular and hope I can find more interesting objects soon.