Celestron Outland X

Price £129 • Weight 790g • Extras Narrow, nylon neck strap; tethered objective caps and rain guard; lightly padded fabric case Supplier David Hinds Ltd • Tel 01525 852696 • www.celestron.uk.com

Weighing just shy of 800g, these are easily the lightest binoculars on test. We found them very comfortable to handle and enjoyed the sharp on-axis views they gave. Colour correction was quite good, as was the colour rendition – it was easy to distinguish the orange of Herschel’s Garnet Star (Mu (+) Cephei) from the brilliant white of Alderamin (Alpha (_) Cephei) and the yellow of Zeta (c) Cephei.

The eye relief is a very short 10mm, and some of this is taken up by the recess of the eye lens. Consequently, we were unable to see the entire field of view when we tried observing while wearing spectacles.

They are specified as being ‘multi-coated’ and, although the anti-reflective coatings on the lenses were effective, the image was noticeably dimmer than with the other binoculars in this test, all of which were specified as ‘fully multi-coated’. In common with most 50mm roof prism binoculars, the minimum interpupillary distance is limited by the design and is relatively large at 61mm.