With binoculars you can see so much more in the night sky. Take our deep-sky tour and find out.
There are hundreds of astronomical bodies that a pair of binoculars will bring into view for you.
Not only will they let you see many more objects than you can with the naked eye, but the detail and colour in those objects become a lot richer.
With binoculars, the Coathanger asterism in Vulpecula actually looks like a coathanger and the Orion Nebula becomes a fantastically detailed painting of light.
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The Milky Way is no longer a tenuous glowing band, but a knotted tangle of stars, interspersed with mysterious dark patches.
Albireo goes from being an ordinary-looking star that marks the head of Cygnus to an exquisite binary juxtaposition of gold and sapphire.
And you can easily see galaxies by the light that left them millions of years ago, when our ancestors were thinking about leaving the trees.
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Binoculars are still suitable even if you want to do ‘serious’ astronomy.
There are variable star observing programmes specifically for binoculars, and their portability makes them ideal for taking to the narrow track where a lunar graze or asteroid occultation is visible.
Alternatively, you could wrap up warm, lie back on your garden recliner and just enjoy the objects that the binoculars let you find as you cast your gaze among the stars.
Before you even realise it, you have begun to learn the sky and you’ll soon be able to navigate around it better than the entry-level Go-To telescope you nearly bought instead.
Best of all, you can have this complete observing system for two eyes for less than the price of one reasonably good telescope eyepiece.
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In this guide we’ll go through 6 wonderful targets that are visible in the night sky through binoculars.
This binocular tour can be made all the easier by downloading our April 2023 binocular tour form (PDF) and using it to help you navigate.
The tour form is black on white, so you can read it under red light and avoid spoiling your night vision.
For more advice, read our guide to stargazing with binoculars, our pick of the best binoculars for astronomy and the best budget binoculars.
6 binocular night-sky targets for April 2023
The Double Cluster
Half way between mag. 2.6 Ruchbah (Delta (δ) Cassiopeiae) and mag. +2.9 Gamma (γ) Cassiopeiae you will find a close pair of open clusters. These are known as the Double Cluster.
In a rural sky, you can see them with your naked eye as a distinctly elongated smudge of light, but binoculars will reveal two little concentrations of stars. Those stars are intrinsically extremely bright: if the Sun was there, it would be too faint for you to see it in binoculars!
Melotte 15
If you imagine that mag. +3.3 Segin (Epsilon (ε) Cassiopeiae) and mag. +4.6 Iota (ι) Cassiopeiae are two corners of an equilateral triangle, Melotte 15 is the third corner.
In 10×50 binoculars, you’ll see a large (20-arcminute) glow with a handful of brighter stars forming a V shape. If you have a UHC filter to hold over an eyepiece, you might see the nebulosity (IC1805, the Heart Nebula) that surrounds, and gave birth to, the cluster.
Markarian 6
Markarian 6 lies slightly less than 1° to the south-southwest of Mel 15. It’s quite easy to miss, so we use larger binoculars. What you should see is an arrow of half a dozen ninth-magnitude stars pointing southwards.
Owing to its faintness compared to Mel 15, you might assume it is much further away, but at 1,600 lightyears it is actually just under a quarter of the distance.
Pazmino’s Cluster
If you pan slightly more than 1.5° due west from mag. +4.3 CS Camelopardalis, you will find an unremarkable little trapezium of seventh and eigth-magnitude stars. This is Stock 23, also known as Pazmino’s Cluster.
Your binoculars should reveal that this is much more than a trapezium and you may be able to resolve about half a dozen stars against a faintly glowing patch of sky about 10 arcminutes in diameter.
Kemble’s Cascade
On spring evenings, Kemble’s Cascade is near-horizontal in the sky, so this line of eighth-magnitude stars, with a brighter fifth-magnitude one in the middle, looks more like a wristwatch or bracelet opened out against the sky than a tumbling cascade.
To find it, extend a line from mag. +2.3 Caph (Beta (β) Cassiopeiae) to Segin the same distance to the central bright star.
Beta Cam
You can see mag. +4.0 Beta (β) Camelopardalis with the naked eye, and its mag. +7.4 companion, which lies 84 arcseconds southwest is easy to distinguish, even in small binoculars.
Beta Cam is a yellow supergiant in transition between being a hot new blue star and a much cooler red supergiant. It sometimes flashes, probably due to the equivalent of huge solar flares.
This guide originally appeared in the April 2023 issue of BBC Sky at Night Magazine.