Our sun is a great beauty to behold, only when you are protected with the right solar binoculars. With a good product, you can look at spectacular phenomena like a solar eclipse while staying safe from the danger of solar retinopathy, in simple terms, burning your retinas. Worse than looking at the sun with your naked eyes, is looking through an optical device like unfiltered binoculars or telescope as these will intensify the sun’s rays further and will most likely lead to blindness.
Best Solar Binoculars
Below, we take a look at our top five solar binoculars on the market all packed with the required features to ensure safe, magnified views of our star.
1. Celestron – EclipSmart 10×42 Solar Binocular
The Celestron EclipSmart is a handy binocular pair that comes with solar filtering lenses while bringing you 10x magnification for the best details of our star. It comes in a rubberized aluminum armor for a comfortable, non-slip grip, and impact-absorption, and overall low weight of the gadget. It also comes with a wide field of view, a host of accessories, and is eyeglass friendly.
- Exceptional image contrast, 10x magnification, and wide field of view.
- Compact and lightweight, durable armoring.
- Highly ergonomic and comes with accessories.
2. Celestron – EclipSmart 10×25 Solar Binocular
This outstanding gadget also from Celestron emphasizes exceptional compactness and portability. It comes with permanent glass solar filters, a wide field of view, and excellent image contrast. It is small enough to fit into a pocket and comes in a durable rubber-coated aluminum casing for the most convenience.
- Compact and lightweight.
- Wide field of view and excellent solar filtering.
- Good image contrast and durable design.
3. LUNT SOLAR SYSTEMS Sunoculars
This solar binoculars from Lunt Solar Systems boasts of exceptional image contrast and solar filtering for safe eclipse viewing. It is compact and lightweight enough to fit into a pocket and comes with an ergonomic rubberized casing for comfort and great handleability. It also comes with long eye relief and adjustable eyecups to suit eyeglass users.
- Compact and lightweight.
- Good solar filtering, ergonomic design.
- Good user adaptability and viewing flexibility.
4. Meade Instruments EclipseView 10X50
The Meade Instruments EclipseView comes with replaceable solar filters and delivers excellent magnification and a wide field of view. It boasts of multicoated optics with BaK-4 prisms for the best image quality and comes in a compact, rubberized housing for comfort and shock absorption. It also comes with a host of accessories for out of the box use.
- Replaceable solar filters and high magnification.
- Wide field of view and superb image quality.
- Compact, ergonomic design, with clear contrast.
5. Orion UltraView 10×50 Binocular Solar Kit
The Orion UltraView 10×50 Binocular Solar Kit comes with all you’ll need for the next eclipse. See sharp contrasts of the sun’s profile safely, with a powerful 10x magnification and wide field of view. The replaceable solar filters are designed to make the unit easily adaptable to regular use by removing them.
- High magnification and wide field of view.
- Multipurpose for both solar and regular use.
- Excellent contrast and image quality.
Solar Binoculars Buying Guide
Solar binoculars are designed to greatly diminish the intensity of light rays reaching your eyes from our star and allow you to see its external profile up-close, safely. When on the market for a pair of solar binoculars, there are a number of qualities you want to be on the lookout for.
Our buying guide reviews the best solar binoculars on the market based on their specified features and outlines the necessary considerations to make to ensure you go for one that will bring good value for money.
Replaceable vs. Permanent Filters
Solar binoculars come with either replaceable or permanent solar filters. Models with replaceable filters are great for multipurpose use as the filters can easily be removed for regular use when not staring at the sun. Should the filters also start to get scratched or damaged, they can easily be replaced. Permanent filters, on the other hand, are strictly for solar viewing as they will be too dark for regular use. They are very handy and you’re not bothered about forgetting your filters when going out.
Field of View
The field of view is the size of the viewing background available to your eyes through the eyepiece. The field of view is measured as distance in meters or feet, or as an angle in degrees. When going for solar binoculars, it is intuitive that you look for binoculars with wide fields of view.
A wide field of view will allow you to scan through a very wide area of the sky, much quicker than the focused view of a binocular pair with higher magnifying power. You can easily spot the sun and whatever may be happening around it, without moving your binoculars too much.
Magnification
The magnification of your solar binoculars measures how close or large the sun looks through the eyepiece. The higher the magnification, the more details of the sun’s external profile are available to you. Higher magnifications, however, mean a smaller field of view and less image stability. If you want to go for binoculars with very high power to capture our star in more detail, then a tripod stand is a good accessory to buy to ensure image stability.
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